Island mobility and dynamic scaling during thin film deposition - art. no.115402

Simulation results for island nucleation and growth during thin film deposi tion with mobile islands are presented. The islands have a diffusion consta nt Ds(-mu) that depends on island size s. The dynamic scaling properties of the island density variation with coverage are investigated. It is found t hat the maximum density N(m)similar to (D/F)(-x) occurs at coverage theta ( m)similar to (D/F)(-omega) where F is the monomer deposition rate. The grow th exponents chi and omega are found to vary in a systematic way with the m obility coefficient mu. This suggests that experiments may be devised to in vestigate this behavior in real systems. A mean-field-theory description is also presented to draw out the physics of the scaling. Numerical solutions of the rate equations show very good agreement with the Simulation results and also show that the scaling phenomenon is robust with respect to island morphology and is not restricted to the simplistic model used here in the simulations.