Simulation of fractal growth of thin films at low temperature

Abstract

Fractal growth of thin films at low temperature (50–175 K) is simulated by Monte Carlo method. It is shown that the thin film growth is quite different from the diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) model when the coverage is larger than 0.1 ML. The average branch width of clusters increases with increasing temperature and it usually larger than the branch width (1.9 atom) in the classic DLA model. The average fractal dimension of clusters increases also with increasing coverage while the fractal dimension of DLA model remains constant. This difference comes from the weak screening effect during the late stage of thin film growth. The relationship between the saturation island number ns and deposition interval Δt is described in a power law: ns ∝ Δtγ, where γ = −0.332 is very close to the theoretical value -1/3 of rate equations from nucleation theory.