Kinetics of nanoring formation on surfaces of stressed thin films

We model the kinetics of nanoring (NR) formation in stressed thin films and explore systematically the resulting nanoring structures upon variation of the film thermal processing parameters. We find that the thermal stress induced in the films during their thermal annealing can trigger the transformation of quantum dots on the film surface to simple NRs or multiple concentric NRs. Our analysis provides a comprehensive explanation of experimentally observed nanoring formation on stressed film surfaces, as well as a design rule for fabricating NRs with precisely controlled features and sizes.