Scaling and self-similarity in growth of clusters on surfaces

Experimental studies of phase transitions and coarsening phenomena under conserved and non-conserved order parameter conditions are of current interest since growth scaling law behaviour is theoretically predicted and self-similar size distributions are expected. We present the first detailed data on the system Sn on Si(100) and Si(111), sufficient to distinguish growth law exponents for the radius of three-dimensional clusters on two-dimensional surfaces under mass conservation conditions. The results for late stage growth support the theoretically predicted value for r(t) ∝ tⁿ with n = 1 4 while a rather long transient regime is observed for early times.