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.