A study of transient diffusion mechanism in low-temperature epitaxy process of thin metal films

The transient diffusion processes in low-temperature epitaxial growth of Cu thin film on Cu(100) have been studied and classified by using molecular dynamics simulations with a hybrid tight-binding-like potential. The statistics indicate that the noticeable contribution to the surface mobility of adatoms comes from the impact cascade diffusion mechanism. Meanwhile, the observed oscillations of diffraction intensity show that a quasi layer-by-layer growth may take place at the temperature as low as 100 K in the initial stage of thin-film formation