Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for the submonolayer growth of homoepitaxial SrTiO3 thin films

Perovskite ferroelectric thin films have attracted much attention for the potential applications in modern microelectronics, micro-electro-mechanical systems, and information storage. Computer simulation is helpful for optimising the process parameters and manufacturing high-performance ferroelectric thin films. Herein the work presents a kinetic Monte Carlo method for simulating the submonolayer growth of homoepitaxial SrTiO3 (STO) thin films, and investigate the effects of substrate temperature, incident kinetic energy of adatoms, and deposition rate on the growth of STO thin films. The results show that with the increase of the substrate temperature, and the incident kinetic energy, or the decrease of the deposition rate, the density of islands decreases, and the bonding ratio increases. This study provides an understanding of submonolayer STO thin films growth at atomic scale.