Si(001) homoepitaxial growth

Epitaxial growth is generally treated as a far-from-equilibrium process, dominated by kinetic restraints rather than thermodynamic driving forces. In this paper we show that homoepitaxial growth, at temperatures exceeding approx.500°C, is a process that can be approached very well from a thermodynamic equilibrium viewpoint, augmented with classical homogeneous nucleation theory.