High-performance atomistic modeling of optical thin films deposited by energetic processes

Abstract

In this paper we present a computationally effective approach to classical molecular dynamic simulation of thin film growth with orientation on cluster supercomputing facilities. The goal of the developed approach is to investigate structural heterogeneities of thin films deposited on substrates at a nanoscale level. These heterogeneities depend on the experimental conditions of a deposition process being used. They have essential influence on practical properties of thin films and their modeling is important for achieving further progress in thin film optical technology. The presented research is focused on silicon dioxide thin films growth. A special force field, oriented on the atomistic description of the silicon dioxide deposition on fused silica substrate, has been developed and applied to the molecular dynamic simulation with the GROMACS package. The validity of the developed simulation approach is verified using atomic clusters consisting of up to 106 atoms and having characteristic dimensions of up to 30 nm. Its computational efficiency is tested using up to 2048 cores. The dependence of achievable efficiency on model parameters is discussed.