Atomistic Simulation of Texture Competition During Thin Film Deposition

In this paper, we review the principles and the applications of an atomistic simulator for thin film deposition (ADEPT), which is a hybrid of classical molecular dynamics and lattice Monte Carlo methods. Molecular dynamics is used to study details of the atomic movement, whereas the lattice Monte Carlo method is used to simulate the long time evolution of thin film deposition. In the first stage development of ADEPT, a single lattice was used representing a single crystal. Later, the description was extended to two lattices to simulate the competition between two textures during deposition. More recently, multiple lattices have been incorporated to treat the competition of all possible textures. At each stage, ADEPT was applied to simulate the deposition of various thin films, with a focus on electronic materials. The atomistic simulations, in particular those based on this model, provide insights into the mechanisms of texture development.