Molecular dynamics simulation of thin film nucleation through molecular cluster beam deposition: Effect of incident angle

Deposition of organic cluster beams on solid substrates leads to the creation of thin films through rapid chemical reactions, which makes the process suitable for study by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In this work, angular effects of molecular organic beam deposition are studied extensively through classical MD simulations. The reactive empirical bond potential parameterized by Brenner is used. The specific system that is examined consists of an ethylene molecular cluster beam that is deposited on a hydrogen-terminated diamond (1 1 1) substrate at room temperature. The beam impacts the substrate along two crystallographic orientations at incident angles of 0degrees, 15degrees, 45degrees and 60degrees from the surface normal. Two sets of conditions are considered: one where the total incident energy is constant and one where the momentum normal to the surface is constant. The results are seen to depend on the total energy and incident angle and to be independent of crystallographic orientation. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.