Simulation at high temperature of atomic deposition, islands coalescence, Ostwald and inverse Ostwald ripening with a general simple kinetic Monte Carlo code

A three-dimensional kinetic Monte Carlo model (kMC) is proposed for the simulation of deposition and evolution of surface structures at elevated temperatures. The code includes deposition of one given type of atom and main thermally driven events such as surface diffusion, diffusion along island edges, detachment from islands, and movement of atoms on deposited surfaces. It can be used not only for simulating nucleation and growth of thin films but also for simulating time evolution of a given structure when annealed. It is a specific event kMC code, and the rates of the events are used as inputs. It allows the simulation of thousands of incident particles and the simulation of a system at high temperature without suffering large computational time. The code runs on a PC and is freely available. Results of modeling various situations like atomic deposition (Pd on SiO2), islands coalescence (Cu on Cu), Ostwald and inverse Ostwald ripening (Co/C and Co/SiO2) were tested against existing experimental and theoretical data and show a good agreement for all those cases. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.