Molecular dynamics simulations of SrTiO3 thin-film growth from cluster deposition

We use classical molecular dynamics simulations to examine the deposition of SrTiO(3) stoichiometric clusters on (001) SrTiO(3). The simulations consider the deposition of clusters that consist of one, two, three or four stoichiometric units that have incident energies of 1.0 eV/atom. Two types of beam compositions are considered: those that are comprised of mono-sized clusters and those that are comprised of mixed-sized clusters along with individual SrO and TiO(2) particles. The results are analyzed to determine the effect of surface termination layer (SrO versus TiO(2)), cluster size and beam composition on the resulting thin-film structure. The simulations indicate that termination layer and beam composition have an impact on the resulting film structure with mixed-beam composition and TiO(2) termination yielding films with a structure similar to that of bulk STO.