Recent advances in island and multilayer growth of metals on metals far from equilibrium

In recent years, the study of growth of metal-on-metal homoepitaxial and heteroepitaxial films under far-from-equilibrium conditions (low substrate temperature and/or high deposition rate) has yielded quite surprising results. Under these conditions local thermodynamic equilibrium is not achieved, and kinetic influenced growth modes and film properties are often obtained. Here we present a review of a comprehensive study that we just completed on island nucleation and growth, manipulation of growth modes, and kinetic roughening of the heteroepitaxial growth of Pb on Cu(001) at low substrate temperature.