Morphology evolution of glancing angle deposition Ag films on nanosphere-array substrates: Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation

The mechanism of Ag film growing processes by glancing angle deposition on various substrates is investigated via a three-dimensional kinetic Monte Carlo technique. From the morphology evolution of the film structures, three stages of the columnar growth on a close-packed spherical seed layer are demonstrated. At the initial stage, the Ag film is enforced to grow in periodically aligned columns instead of random distribution. As film height increases, the growth competition among columns becomes more drastic, leading to column broadening and extinction. At the later stage, the modulation of seed layers vanishes and random multiple Ag rods are formed on the broadened transection, which is similar to the columnar growth on the bare substrate. The variation of the growth exponent with film height increasing suggests the same three stages. In addition, different spherical periods play a significant role in duration of the height in each stage. Simulation conclusions are in agreement with the corresponding experiments.