Post-deposition island growth with long-range interactions

The effects of long-range interactions on the scaling of the average island-size, island-size distribution, and saturation time are investigated for a simple model of post-deposition island growth. While long-range interactions are found to have little effect on the scaled island-size distribution, the average island-size is strongly affected. Excellent agreement is found with the proposed scaling form S(θ,t)=θzg(θtβ) for the average island size S(θ,t) at time t and coverage θ. The exponents z and β and the scaling function g(u) depend on the range and sign of the interaction. Long-range interactions are also found to strongly affect the saturation time as well as the exponent describing its dependence on coverage. This leads to a simple experimental method to detect the presence of long-range interactions