The effect of incident energy and cluster size on the deposition Cu clusters on the Fe (001) surface

Abstract The deposition of Cu clusters on the Fe (0 0 1) surface was investigated by molecular dynamics simulation at room temperature. The clusters containing 13, 55 and 147 atoms, respectively, were deposited with incident energies ranging from 0.1 to 10.0 eV/atom. A many-body potential based on Finnis–Sinclair model was used to describe the interactions among atoms. The effect of incident energy and cluster size was demonstrated upon the atomic mean kinetic energy of cluster, the penetrating depth of cluster, the interaction potential energy between cluster and substrate subsystems, the epitaxial degree and the spreading index of cluster. The simulation results showed that the time of collision phase decreases as incident energy of cluster increases, but it increases for larger cluster. The incident energy also has a significant influence on the interaction potential energy, the penetrating depth and the spreading index of cluster, especially with cluster size increasing. The epitaxial degree of the small cluster is higher than one of the large cluster. Furthermore, the finally deposition morphology and the number of defects in substrate are affected by both incident energy and cluster size.