The Kinetic Monte Carlo method: Foundation, implementation, and application

The Kinetic Monte Carlo method provides a simple yet powerful and flexible tool for exercising the concerted action of fundamental, stochastic, physical mechanisms to create a model of the phenomena that they produce. This manuscript contains an overview of the theory behind the method, some simple examples to illustrate its implementation, and a technologically relevant application of the method to model the refinement of grains during polycrystalline thin film deposition. The objective is to provide an introduction to the method and its basics, and to present useful examples that might be followed to achieve its implementation for solving practical problems.