MODELING OF CO-DEPOSITION OF INDIUM AND TIN ON SILICON(100): A KINETIC MONTE CARLO STUDY

Abstract

A growth model for co-deposition of Sn and In on Si (100) at room-temperature was simulated using Kinetic Monte Carlo methods to shed light on the chemical selectivity and lack of dimer ordering seen in [Jure et al., Appl. Surf. Sci.162, 638 (2000)], a Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) study. In this work, the experimental observation that the number of mixed In – Sn dimers is unaffected even when the relative flux rates are adjusted to favor In over Sn (by 100:1) — a manifestation of some sort of chemical selectivity — was investigated. Our simulations reveal that this phenomenon is ultimately related to the fact that the number of Sn -terminated chains is largely unaffected by the relative flux rate. Finally, we found that the attraction between metal dimers (whether of the same or different species) within a Si dimer row has only negligible effect on the apparent lack of dimer ordering seen in the STM study. Instead, dimer ordering is controlled by the detachment barriers in dimer-terminated islands.