Nucleation and critical condensation phenomena of silver on silicon oxide

Recent theoretical predictions of thin film nucleation are reviewed and the relationships between these and critical condensation conditions derived. Experiments of measurements of nucleation density with varying substrate temperature are described and the results compared with theory. Adsorption and surface diffusion energies of silver on silicon oxide have been obtained. Further experiments involving critical condensation are described and the results support the values of surface adsorption energy obtained by the nucleation studies.