Impact-driven effects in thin-film growth: steering and transient mobility at the Ag(110) surface

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to analyze how low-energy atom impacts influence surface mobility and film growth on Ag(110), revealing the roles of steering and transient effects driven by surface anisotropy.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantitative analysis of impact-induced steering and transient mobility effects on Ag(110), highlighting their dependence on impact energy and direction, and their influence on nanoscale film morphology.

Findings

Surface anisotropy significantly affects steering and mobility.

Impact energy and direction influence atom trajectories.

Steering and mobility impact nanoscale film morphology.

Abstract

Low-energy atomic impacts on the Ag(110) surface are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations based on reliable many-body semiempirical potentials. Trajectory deflections (steering) caused by the atom-surface interaction are observed, together with impact-following, transient-mobility effects. Such processes are quantitatively analysed and their dependence on the initial kinetic energy and on the impinging direction is discussed. A clear influence of the surface anisotropy on both steering and transient mobility effects is revealed by our simulations for the simple isolated-atom case and in the submonolayer-growth regime. For the latter case, we illustrate how steering and transient mobility affect the film morphology at the nanoscale.