Fractal simulation of thin film nucleation growth process using a diffusion-limited aggregation model

Abstract

In order to study the initial nucleation and growth process of the films, a two-dimensional (2D) DLA model was established, and fractal dimension was calculated by sandbox method. Compared with the experimental results, the model can well characterize the morphology of nucleation and growth in the initial stage of film growth. In addition to the number of particles and deposition probability involved in other studies, the size of substrate and the location of central particles are also considered in this work. The growth morphology, fractal dimension and the number of simulated steps are presented in this paper.