Kinetic Monte-Carlo simulations of thin film deposition and growth

Kinetic Monte-Carlo simulations of the formation and growth of thin films are performed. The effects of a variety of factors on the physical quantities relevant to the submonolayer and multilayer thin film growth are reported and the results are discussed.;A summary of the surface physics field and of quantities of relevance to the field of thin film growth is presented in Part I.;In Part II, our results are reported in three chapters, as follows: In Chapter 3 the effects of long-range interactions on the scaling of the average island size, island size distribution, and saturation time are investigated for a simple model of post-deposition nucleation. While long-range interactions are found to have little effect on the scaled island size distribution, the average island size is strongly affected. Excellent agreement is found with the proposed scaling form S(theta, t) = theta zg(thetat beta) for the average island size S(theta, t) at time t and coverage theta. The exponents z and beta and the scaling function g( u) depend on the range and sign of the interaction. Long-range interactions are also found to strongly affect the saturation time as well as the exponent describing its dependence on coverage. This leads to a simple experimental method to detect the presence of long-range interactions.;In Chapter 4, results of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of a realistic model of post-deposition island growth which takes into account the spatial extent of islands are presented. Simulations were carried out on one and two dimensional substrates for different values of the critical island size i and were compared with previous results for a point-island model. The use of a realistic island geometry results in enhanced island aggregation and coalescence. This leads to an increase in the average island size S as well as the exponent z describing the dependence of S on coverage. The shape of the island size distribution for i = 3 also changes dramatically due to the existence of "magic" islands.;In Chapter 5 we investigate the changes in island density and size distribution, as well as in the deposited coverage and in the first layer coverage corresponding to the percolation threshold resulting from assigning different adatom diffusion rates, according to the type of motion performed---diffusion along the edge of an island, diffusion over a step, regular diffusion. We consider both island growth with edge and corner diffusion---leading to compact islands---as well as in the absence of edge diffusion---leading to fractal island. Various values of the step barrier are also investigated and their effect of island density, average island size, size distribution is shown. We also measure the percolation threshold as well as the coverage in the upper layers, for the investigated cases. We find that all these quantities depend on the type of islands as well as on the step barrier. Also, we present scaling results for the island density and upper-layer coverage for the various finite values of the step barrier studied.;Lastly, in Chapter 6 we summarize our results and present our conclusions as well as possible further directions.