Step-flow growth on semiconductor-like stepped surface: A kinetic Monte Carlo study

Abstract

Applying Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) technique, we investigated the influence of temperature and step-width on the step-flow growth of a (2D + 1) semiconductor-like uniform-spacing stepped model with inverse Ehrlich-Schwoebel (iES) barrier. The relation between diffusion length (R) and half of step width (L/2) was established to characterize the transition temperature T-c for switching between the random deposition growth and step-flow growth on surface. When temperature is lower than T-c, the surface growth mode is dominated by random deposition growth. As temperature approaches to T-c, the surface growth mode gradually switches to step-flow growth. However, only when the temperature is much higher than T-c, the random deposition growth is completely replaced by the step-flow growth. It is found that the step-width effect has a profound influence on surface growth mode in the transition region. The surface morphology undergoes a kinetic step-flow growth to form step-edge aggregation by either increasing temperature or decreasing the step width.