Phenomenological approach in modeling of thin film nucleation from the liquid phase

The main theses and peculiarities of a phenomenological model of non-stationary nucleation of a thin film are analyzed. The model is shown to be applicable for the study of heterogeneous nucleation in the liquid phase. The complete set of equations including the main equation of macrokinetic condensation theory is solved numerically and a nuclei distribution function is found in the whole range of sizes. Results of the modeling are presented as nuclei size distribution functions at various moments of time, and the time dependencies of the averaged growth rate, of the degree of substrate occupation etc. Theoretical results are compared to data obtained in experiments on the relaxational liquid-phase epitaxy with inverse mass-transfer, and good agreement is observed.