Temperature-dependent Monte Carlo simulations of thin metal film growth and percolation

A program for the simulation of the nucleation and growth of thin island films on amorphous substrates is presented. The program is based on the description of the phenomenon in terms of adsorption, diffusion, and reevaporation of single atoms on the substrate surface, which is represented as a triangular lattice of adsorption sites. A method of taking into account the interaction with neighboring particles in the evaluation of the diffusion activation barrier is proposed. The simulations are devoted to investigating the role of diffusion and reevaporation in the determination of the particular microstructure of the clusters. The effects of the substrate temperature on the morphology of the simulated island films are also presented. The cluster-size distribution and percolation threshold have been estimated and compared to experimental results available in the literature.