Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Epitaxial Growth

The growth of thin films has been instrumental in the study of many areas of material science, physics, metallurgy, and chemistry and is an important ingredient in the development of many devices. Although experimental studies have been extensively pursued for many years, theoretical studies have only been performed using model calculations which rely on a number of unknown parameters a priori. Only recently have attempts been made to understand thin film growth using realtime numerical simulation. The main reason for the recent increase of such studies is the development of computers capable of tackling a problem of the magnitude required to understand thin film growth. The phenomena present in thin film growth occur for systems containing many particles (e.g., columnar growth) and long relaxation times, which strain the capabilities presently available in modern supercomputers. Further increases in computational power might bring a number of important problems within reach and improve our understanding of thin film growth at the microscopic level.I will present a number of epitaxial growth studies we have performed using molecular dynamics (MD) techniques. I will show that a number of properties predicted by these calculations are in good agreement with experimental observations. These include the microcrystalline and epitaxial growth of metal films, the growth of amorphous films in mixtures of metals, and the vapor phase growth of silicon. Finally, I will outline several important studies yet to be implemented.