The deposition of Fe or Co clusters on Cu substrate by molecular dynamic simulation

A molecular dynamic method is used to simulate the film growth process of Fe or Co clusters depositing on Cu substrate with low energy. The tight-binding (TB-SMA) many-body potential is used to simulate the interaction between atoms. The effects of different incident energies and/or substrate temperatures on the surface roughness, layer coverage function, radial distribution function (RDF), and residual stress are investigated. From the simulation results, as the substrate temperature and/or incident energy is increased, the surface roughness of the grown film could be reduced, and the interface intermixing is increased. Also, as compared to Co-Cu system, Fe-Cu system has better surface roughness, less interface intermixing, and similar radial distribution function as well as average stresses.