Thin-film-growth characteristics by computer simulation: Nanostructural changes as a function of deposition conditions (original) (raw)

Theoretical investigation about secondary deposition of thin-film formation by molecular dynamics simulation

Journal of Crystal Growth, 2007

The thin-film growth has been confirmed to be assembled by an enormous number of clusters in experiments of CVD. Sequence of clusters' depositions proceeds to form the thin-film in short time as gas fluids through surface of substrate. Such growth mechanism has been mainly investigated on the basis of experiment. Due to immense cost of the experimental equipment and low level of current measurement technology, the comprehension about authentic effect of formation condition on properties of nanomaterial is limited in qualitative manner. Three quantitative items: flatness of primary deposition, adhesion between cluster and substrate, and degree of epitaxial growth were proposed to evaluate the property of thin-film. In this simulation, three different cluster sizes of 203, 653, and 1563 atoms with different velocities (0, 10, 100, 1000, and 3000 m/s) were deposited on a Cu(0 0 1) substrate whose temperatures were set between 300 and 1000 K. Four clusters and one cluster were used in primary deposition and secondary deposition, respectively. To increase initial velocity not only enhanced the speed of epitaxial growth, adhesion between clusters and substrate, but also increased the degree of epitaxy for primary deposition and secondary deposition. Exfoliation pattern of thin-film was profoundly dependent on initial velocity through comparison between adhesion of primary and secondary deposition. Moreover, the epitaxial growth became well as the temperature of substrate was raised, and the degree of epitaxy of small cluster was larger than that of larger cluster, no matter of primary and secondary deposition. r 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Monte Carlo simulation of nucleation and growth of thin films

Bulletin of Materials Science, 1997

We study thin film growth using a lattice-gas, solid-on-solid model employing the Monte Carlo technique. The model is applied to chemical vapour deposition (CVD) by including the rate of arrival of the precursor molecules and their dissociation. We include several types of migration energies including the edge migration energy which allows the diffusive movement of the monomer along the interface of the growing film, as well as a migration energy which allows for motion transverse to the interface. Several well-known features of thin film growth are mimicked by this model, including some features of thin copper films grown by CVD. Other features reproduced are-compact clusters, fractal-like clusters, Frank-van der Merwe layer-by-layer growth and Volmer-Weber island growth. This method is applicable to fihn growth both by CVD and by physical vapour deposition (PVD).

Modelling of Phase Structure and Surface Morphology Evolution during Compound Thin Film Deposition

Coatings, 2020

The dependences of the surface roughness and the phase structure of compound thin films on substrate temperature and flux of incoming particles are investigated by a proposed mathematical model. The model, which describes physically deposited thin compound film growth process is based on the Cahn–Hilliard equation and includes processes of phase separation, adsorption, and diffusion. In order to analyze large temperature range and assuming deposition of energetic particles, the diffusion is discriminated into thermal diffusion, radiation-enhanced diffusion, and ion beam mixing. The model is adapted to analyze surface roughness evolution during film growth. The influences of the substrate temperature and incoming flux particles on the surface roughness are determined by a series of numerical experiments. The modelling results showed that the surface roughness increased as the substrate temperature rose. Besides, a similar relationship was discovered between substrate temperature and ...

Molecular Dynamic Simulation Model for the Growth of Thin Films in The Structure Zone Model

2007

A two dimensional molecular dynamic (atomistic) simulation model was used to investigate the relationship between the nano-structure and the deposition parameters; namely, substrate temperature, deposition rate, angle of incidence, surface roughness. Qualitative agreements with the predictions of the structure zone model (SZM) and the theoretical results of Srolovitze and coworkers (1988), as well as expectations through changes in the activated processes during film growth due to changes in deposition parameters (Grovenor and coworkers (1984)) are obtained. It is shown that by enhancing the atomic mobility (i.e., increasing the substrate temperature or/and lowering the deposition rate) films of higher density with fewer voids are produced. By increasing the deposition angle, the nano-structure of the film changes from a dense film with few voids, to a nano-structure with columns/boundless inclined with the same angle (β) towards the incidence atoms with elongated voids. The angle β increases with increasing the deposition angle (α), and in agreement with the tangent rule (Dirks and Leamy (1977)). The angle of bundles (or the angle of the formation of the voids between atomic bundles), and columnar structure are caused by shadowing effects. Results showed that β decreases slowly with increasing surface mobility (i.e., increasing the substrate temperature or/and reducing the deposition rate). In general, the model provides almost all predicted results and agrees well with observations.

Lattice Monte Carlo models of thin film deposition

Thin Solid Films, 2000

Monte Carlo models of crystal growth have contributed to the theoretical understanding of thin ®lm deposition, and are now becoming available as tools to assist in device fabrication. Because they combine ef®cient computation and atomic-level detail, these models can be applied to a large number of crystallization phenomena. They have played a central role in the understanding of the surface roughening transition and its effect on crystal growth kinetics. In addition, columnar growth, vacancy and impurity trapping, and other growth phenomena that are closely related to atomic-level structure have been investigated by these simulations. In this chapter we review some of these applications and discuss MC modeling of sputter deposition based on materials parameters derived from ®rst principles and molecular dynamics methods. We discuss models of deposition which include the atomic scale, but can also simulate ®lm structure evolution on time scales of the order of hours. By the use of advanced computers and algorithms, we can now simulate systems large enough to exhibit clustered, columnar, and polycrystalline ®lm structures. The event distribution is determined from molecular dynamics simulations, which can give diffusion rates, defect production, sputtering yields, and other information needed to match real materials. We discuss simulations of deposition into small vias and trenches, and their extension to the length scale of real devices through scaling relations. q 2000 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Monte Carlo Modeling of Thin Film Deposition: Factors that Influence 3D Islands

In this paper we discuss the use of atomisitc Monte Carlo simulations to predict film microstructure evolution. We discuss physical vapor deposition, and are primarily concerned with films that are formed by the nucleation and coalescence of 3D islands. Multi-scale modeling is used in the sense that information obtained from molecular dynamics [1] and first principles calculations [2] provide atomic interaction energies, surface and grain boundary properties and diffusion rates for use in the Monte Carlo model. In this paper, we discuss some fundamental issues associated with thin film formation, together with an assessment of the sensitivity of the film morphology to the deposition conditions and materials properties.

Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of the growth of polycrystalline Cu films

Surface Science, 2001

A kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) technique has been developed for simulating the growth of polycrystalline thin Cu ®lms on Cu. This method consists of an impact angle-based multiple-collision method for the deposition of incident atoms from an atomic beam and surface diusion of the surface atoms, combined with a restriction of growth within identically oriented grains to simulate the surface morphology and porosity of a polycrystalline-like material. The eect of incident angle (measured from the substrate normal) on the growth morphology and characteristics was the main focus of the study here. This simulation scheme allowed us to observe both columnar growth, at incident angles below about 60°, and dendritic porous growth, at angles above this value. A comparison was made between results from the atomic-scale KMC simulation and existing macroscopic theories to relate the morphological features of the grown ®lm to the angle of the incident beam. We observed that the relationship between the angle of growth and the angle of incidence depends sensitively on the rules governing the sticking probability. Comparison of the roughness of the ®lms predicted by KMC to experimental atomic force microscopy and X-ray re¯ectance data shows similar behavior. The predicted density of the porous ®lms was also in good agreement with experimental results. It was demonstrated that faceting phenomena is a function not only of temperature but also the angle of incidence of the incoming beam. At grazing angles of incidence, faceting can be observed at a temperature much lower than the minimum temperature necessary in experiments conducted at normal incidence. Ó

Monte Carlo Modeling of Thin Film Deposition: Influence of Grain Boundaries on the Porosity of Barrier Layer Films

We present Monte Carlo simulations of metallic thin films grown by sputter deposition from an infinite target. The Monte Carlo model includes ballistic deposition from the target, surface diffusion, and polycrystalline film growth. We study materials with low atomic mobility such as those involved in "barrier layer" films for silicon devices. We discuss the mechanism leading to columnar growth and the influence of the film orientation on structure and density. Finally, we show that polycrystalline films exhibit voids at the grain boundaries, which leads to columnar growth over a wider range of conditions than that for single crystal films.

Quantitative evaluation about property of thin-film formation

Applied Surface Science, 2006

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is gradually emphasized as one promising method for nanomaterial formation. Such growth mechanism has been mainly investigated on basis of experiment. Due to large cost of the equipment of experiment and low level of current measurement, the comprehension about authentic effect of formation condition on properties of nanomaterial is limited in qualitative manner. Three quantitative items: flatness of primary deposition, adhesion between cluster and substrate, and degree of epitaxial growth were proposed to evaluate the property of thin film. In this simulation, three different cluster sizes of 203, 653, 1563 atoms with different velocities (0, 10, 100, 1000, 3000 m/s) were deposited on a Cu(0 0 1) substrate whose temperatures were set between 300 and 1000 K. Within one velocity range, not only the speed of epitaxial growth and adhesion between thin film and substrate were enhanced, but also the degree of epitaxy increased and the shape of thin film became more flat with velocity increasing. Moreover, the epitaxial growth became well as the temperature of substrate was raised within a certain range, and the degree of epitaxy of small cluster was larger than larger cluster. The results indicated that the property of thin film could be controlled if the effect of situations of process was made clear. #

Theoretical study on thin-film formation by parallel molecular dynamics simulation

Synthetic Metals, 2005

Chemical vapor deposition is gradually emphasized as one promising method of nanomaterial formation. Such growth mechanism has been mainly investigated on basis of experiment. Due to large cost of experiment and low level of current measurement, the comprehension about effect of formation condition on properties of nanomaterial is limited in qualitative manner. Two quantitative items: adhesion between cluster and substrate, and degree of epitaxial growth were proposed to evaluate the property of thin film. In this simulation, three different cluster sizes of 203, 653, 1563 atoms with different velocities (0, 10, 100, 1000, 3000 m/s) were deposited on Cu (0 0 1) substrate whose temperature was set between 300 and 1000 K. Within one velocity range, not only the speed of epitaxial growth and adhesion of thin film were enhanced, but also the degree of epitaxy increased with velocity increasing. Moreover, the epitaxial growth became well as the temperature of substrate was raised within a certain range, and the degree of epitaxy of small cluster was larger than larger cluster. The results indicated that the property of thin film could be controlled if the effect of situations of process was made clear.