CONTINUOUS-SPACE MONTE-CARLO SIMULATIONS OF EPITAXIAL-GROWTH

Although lattice models have been very successful in modelling many as pects of epitaxial growth, the confinement of atoms to sites on a regu lar lattice is a severe impediment to extending these simulation studi es to the heteroepitaxial growth of materials with a lattice mismatch. In principle molecular dynamics overcomes this limitation, but the di sparity between simulational and laboratory timescales limits this met hod to the submonolayer regime of growth. Following the early work of Faux et al. [Phys. Rev. B 42 (1990) 2914], we have developed a Monte C arlo simulation where a continuous range of atomic positions are allow ed. By adopting hard sphere interactions and a simple form of site hop ping, we have investigated the effects of mismatch on the growth mode and made comparisons with Lennard-Jones molecular dynamics simulations . We will discuss the strengths and limitations of this way of combini ng the Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics methods for modelling epitax ial growth.