Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of the wetting layer in Stranski-Krastanov heteroepitaxial growth

► We present a new modification of the solid-on-solid heteroepitaxial KMC model. ► It is based on a prefactor of the elastic correction to the energy barrier. ► A hypothesis about the evolution of the effective misfit strain is proposed. ► Predicted critical layer thickness shows a good agreement with previous results. ► The model is successfully applied to the system InAs/GaAs (0 0 1).