Study on Sub monolayer Epitaxy Growth under Anisotropic Detachment

TL;DR

This study uses kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to explore how diffusion and bonding anisotropies influence island formation and morphology during sub-monolayer epitaxial growth, revealing bonding anisotropy's role in island elongation.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of bonding anisotropy on island elongation and morphology in molecular beam epitaxy, using a simple cubic solid-on-solid model with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations.

Findings

Bonding anisotropy leads to elongated islands.

Surface anisotropy affects island morphology but not elongation.

Growth exponent and island size distribution are influenced by anisotropies.

Abstract

We have performed Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation to study the effect of diffusion anisotropy and bonding anisotropy on island formation at different temperatures during the sub-monolayer film growth in Molecular Beam Epitaxy. We use simple cubic solid on solid model and event based Bortz, Kalos and Labowitch (BKL) algorithm on Kinetic Monte Carlo method to simulate the physical phenomena. We have found that surface anisotropy has no significant role on island elongation however it influences on the island morphology, growth exponent and island size distribution. Elongated islands were obtained when bonding anisotropy was included.