A computational approach to morphological control in electrodeposition by molecular targeting

We propose a model for the morphology of metal layers electrochemically grown in the presence of complex organic molecules. We developed a computational approach that idealizes both the molecule and the surface profile of the electrodeposit as a sequence of concatenated oriented vectors in a plane. We use simple concepts from linear algebra to construct a molecular targeting set where a molecule can either enhance or inhibit the electrodeposition process. For a given growth law, we define a simple algorithm that simulates the evolution in time of an assigned surface profile, in the case of processes performed in the two following modes: (i) the molecules are preadsorbed at the initial surface; (ii) the molecules are present in the growth environment. We report statistics on profiles grown in several typical situations. The numerical results obtained confirm typical experimental situations, well-known from the literature.