Deposition of an energetic Al cluster on Si(111) substrate: a molecular dynamics simulation

A molecular dynamics simulation on the deposition of an energetic Al cluste r on Si(111) substrate was studied. We employed the Stillinger-Weber three- body potential to simulate the Si substrate and the Born-Mayer-Higgins pote ntial to compute the interactions between cluster and substrate. For one im pacting Al cluster, the migration distance of the cluster atoms and the dep osition morphology were investigated under different substrate temperatures , impacting cluster energies and cluster sizes. It can be found that diffus ion distance increases with the increasing substrate temperature, cluster e nergy and cluster size; moreover the deposition morphologies also change un der similar conditions.