Studying orientation relationships in heteroepitaxial systems

To date, the crystallography of deposits on single-crystal substrates has been studied by the use of linear transformation theories, and the results of the two-dimensional invariant line criterion are quite successful in rationalizing the epitaxial orientation of most metal/metal systems. In this article, however, we describe the use of a lattice potential-energy model (LPEM) to duplicate the results of the invariant line criterion by examining the case of silicides on (001) Si. Unlike geometric models that ignore the chemical nature of atoms and look only for strain energy, the LPEM has the potential of simulating real chemical bonding by altering the nature of the Fourier series used to generate the potential surface.