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Avoiding Anisotropies in On‐Lattice Simulations of Ballistic Deposition
Author(s) -
Grüner Christoph,
Grüner Susann,
Mayr Stefan G.,
Rauschenbach Bernd
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.202000036
Subject(s) - anisotropy , lattice (music) , materials science , condensed matter physics , thin film , grid , silicon , chemical physics , computational physics , optics , nanotechnology , physics , geometry , optoelectronics , mathematics , acoustics
Anisotropies often arise in the context of on‐lattice simulations of deposition processes. For instance, the density of simulated thin films depends on the orientation of the substrate and the particle flux with respect to the simulation cell axes, which is known as “grid effect”. Although being the reason for a variety of unphysical results obtained in on‐lattice simulations, less attention is paid to such anisotropies. Herein, the grid effect is studied on the example of the glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique. GLAD is a physical vapor deposition process that is characterized by a material flux arriving with a highly oblique incidence angle at the substrate. Due to self‐shadowing, a highly porous thin film consisting of separated nanostructures is formed by this method. It is shown that all on‐lattice simulations that contain substrate rotation, beam divergence, or a varying angle of incidence are affected by the grid effect. A method utilizing cluster particles is presented, to reduce the grid effect in on‐lattice simulations. Finally, it is demonstrated that the on‐lattice simulation of GLAD films utilizing cluster particles matches with experimentally deposited silicon films.