A kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) model for surface diffusion on a 2D lattice is proposed.
An equivalent continuum cellular automaton (CA) model is derived from this. These models are
shown to produce similar results at high temperatures. A hybrid KMC-CA model is derived which
consistently allows material to transfer between a deterministic CA model and a stochastic KMC
model concurrently embedded within it. The quality of the model is demonstrated by simulating the
flattening of a sinusoidal surface profile and the evolution of an elliptical body into a circular one.
Effect of nonlinearity in hybrid kinetic Monte Carlo–continuum models