Formation of Fe nanowires on Cu(100) vicinal surfaces

Abstract The current paper describe the formation of Fe nanowires on Cu(100) vicinal surfaces via Kinetic Monte-Carlo (KMC) simulations based on the solid-on-solid model to determine optimum growth parameters, such as substrate temperature T, deposition rate F and coverage rate θ . The heteroepitaxial growth of mono-atomic wires on a Cu surface is performed over a large range of temperature, varying between 50K and 550K. We found that ‘perfect’ mono-atomic wires are formed at the step-edge of Cu vicinal surface in the temperature range [400K - 510K]. The existence of an optimal temperature and deposition flux for the formation of the ordered Fe nanowires on stepped Cu(100) surface is found. We also discussed how the magnitude of the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier (ES) and inverse Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier (ESi) affects the filling rate and the uniformity of Fe nanowires.