Simulation of multigrain thin film growth

Abstract

In [28], Russo and Smereka presented a level set method for the growth of fully faceted grains. This method produced interesting results, but it is not applicable to typical grain growth where the operating temperature is well below that which would produce fully faceted grains during deposition. In this lower temperature regime, the deposition rate and the diffusion rate are in competition to determine the ultimate texture of the film, and which grain orientation is preferred. In this paper, we present a new technique coupling the level set method with the marker particle method to study multigrain thin film growth. The resulting method is designed for more realistic temperature ranges where grains are not typically fully faceted.