Kinetic Monte Carlo Simulation Of Energetic Atoms Deposition

Recently, the study of thin films is one of the most investigated fields due to its unique characteristics and potential wide range of applications in modern science and technology. As the advances of computer technology and of the insight into the structures and dynamic processes of materials at its different levels, the modeling simulation of the growth of thin films on atomic scale is an effective way to study in this field. By simulation of thin films growth, some microscopic processes can be revealed in extreme condition, such as high temperature and high deposition rate.In this paper, A three-dimensional (3D) energy-dependent Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) technique is developed to simulate the thin film growth with energetic atoms deposition. We incorporate the effects of the incident kinetic energy and the incident angle of atomic fluxes into the conventional vapor phase deposition model. The atom reflection, the biased diffusion and the athermal diffusion caused by the incident energy and the incident angle are included in our study. We simulate the film morphology and the surface roughness of homoepitaxial Cu films on a Cu(001) substrate with various incident energies and incident angles. The simulation results show that the energetic atoms can enhance the smoothness of the surface. This effect is very significant at low substrate temperature or high deposition rate. For a fixed incident energy, there exists a transition angle, where the surface roughness is the minimum. In addition, the surface morphology of Cu film in sputtering deposition is also studied and the approximate energy and angle distributions of the sputtered atoms are used. The results are in agreement with the experimental results.