Suppression of coalescence during the coarsening of quantum dot arrays

We present a model of quantum dot coarsening which incorporates the elastic interaction between coherently strained islands of a conical shape. This is used to simulate coalescence phenomena in dense island arrays where the precise form of near-field elastic interactions is a critical feature of the coarsening kinetics. Elastic repulsion between islands is found to suppress coalescence and promote Ostwald ripening driven coarsening. This significantly impacts the time evolution of dense quantum dot arrays.