Abstract
The morphology and crystallography of thin Fe films deposited on spherical surfaces of Cu and Au have been examined using field-ion microscopy. The Fe films exhibited nearly the Kurdjumov-Sachs orientation relationship to the Cu substrates and nearly the Bain relationship to the Au substrates. Such a difference in the epitaxial growth mode of Fe could be reasonably explained from a minimization criterion of misfit strain energy together with a geometrical lattice match consideration.