A SIMPLE SOLID-ON-SOLID MODEL OF EPITAXIAL FILM GROWTH: SURFACE ROUGHNESS AND DYNAMICS

Abstract

The random deposition model must be enhanced to reflect the variety of surface roughness due to some material characteristics of the film growing by vacuum deposition or sputtering. The essence of the computer simulation in this case is to account for possible surface migration of atoms just after the deposition, in connection with the binding energy between atoms (as the mechanism provoking the diffusion) and/or diffusion energy barrier. The interplay of these two factors leads to different morphologies of the growing surfaces, from flat and smooth ones to rough and spiky ones. In this paper, we extended our earlier calculation by applying an extra diffusion barrier at the edges of terrace-like structures, known as the Ehrlich–Schwoebel barrier. It is experimentally observed that atoms avoid descending when the terrace edge is approached, and these barriers mimic this tendency. Results of our Monte Carlo computer simulations are discussed in terms of surface roughness, and compared with other model calculations and some experiments from literature. The power law of the surface roughness σ against film thickness t was confirmed. The nonzero minimum value of the growth exponent β near 0.2 was obtained which is due to the limited range of the surface diffusion and the Ehrlich–Schwoebel barrier. Observations for different diffusion ranges are also discussed. The results are also confirimed with some deterministic growth models.