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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The morphological stability of strained-layer thin films is analyzed using classical nucleation theory. For the case where strain relaxation occurs by formation of coherent islands, the model predicts that the critical thickness for transition from two-dimensional (2D) to three dimensional (3D) growth depends inversely on the square of the misfit. The predicted dependence of critical thickness on misfit is in agreement with recent experimental studies on the heteropitaxy of III-V compounds.