| Deposition of energetic particles on solid surfaces has found increasing application in surface science. However, the detailed surface chemistry and relevant atomic mechanisms are not well understood. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are an ideal method to study these processes atomistically because they usually occur on short time scales (of the order of a few picoseconds). In this dissertation, MD simulations are performed to investigate thin film formation through organic cluster beam deposition and chemical modification of carbon nanotube/polymer composites via polyatomic ion beam deposition.; The interatomic forces are calculated from the reactive empirical bond-order (REBO) potential for carbon-based systems coupled with the Lennard-Jones potentials. The reliability of this approach is examined by comparing its predictions for ethylene-cluster beam deposition with the results of a more accurate order-N nonorthogonal tight-binding method. The results show that the REBO potential captures the general characters of the relevant chemistry.; The deposition processes of interest occur at room temperature; hence, appropriate temperature control methods must be employed in the simulations. A comparison study of four temperature control methods during the simulation of cluster deposition finds that the generalized Langevin equation approach is sufficient for dissipation of excess system energy if the deposition occurs on a large enough substrate at a moderate incident energy (<40 eV/cluster-atom). A new temperature control method has been developed for use at higher incident energies.; In the simulations of thin film formation through organic cluster beam deposition, the dependence of the results on the intracluster bonding, incident angle and deposition direction is examined. Beams of ethylene clusters, adamantane molecules, and C20 molecules are thus deposited on a diamond surface with varying lateral momenta along two different crystallographic orientations at various incident angles.; The simulations of chemical modification of carbon nanotube/polystyrene composites via ion beam deposition predict that this process can effectively induce the formation of cross-links between otherwise unfunctionalized nanotube and polystyrene chains. Modification efficiency is shown to depend on the incident energy and the composite structure. The responses of the composites to ion beam deposition are different from the response of pristine polystyrene. The simulations detail the atomic-scale mechanisms that are responsible for these findings. |
