2D versus 3D competition at the early stages of growth for Ge on Si(001) by molecular dynamics

In this paper, we compare the total energy of equilibrated {105} pyramids, layer by layer films and flat prepyramids appearing in the epitaxial growth of Ge on Si(001). At variance to the common belief, we show the {105} pyramids not to be the most stable morphology when the elastic contribution of the Si substrate is taken into account.