Self-organization and geometry control of Pb islands grown on anisotropic substrates

The growth of uniform nanostructures requires discovering robust and reproducible ways to control the grown size and geometry. It is found that the growth of Pb on the anisotropic substrate Si(111)-In(4x1) leads to the control of both the island height and island width by exploiting the combined effects of two different stabilization mechanisms. Quantum size effects control the height and result in uniform four-layer islands while the strain anisotropy, due to the underlying reconstruction, controls the width selection.