Kinetic Monte Carlo study on the decay of two-dimensional nanostructures: Influence of the activation energy of diffusion on kinetic and morphological properties

MARCOS F. CASTEZ; EZEQUIEL V. ALBANO

PHYSICAL REVIEW E - STATISTICAL PHYSICS, PLASMAS, FLUIDS AND RELATED INTERDISCIPLINARY TOPICS

The American Physical Society

Año: 2008 vol. 78 p. 316011 - 316018

1063-651X

   Surface diffusion-mediated decay of two-dimensional nanostructures is studied by means of a kinetic MonteCarlo model. We consider several possible choices for the activation energies associated with possible diffusionpaths, including simple phenomenological models, as well as results provided by the embedded atom model.Numerical results show that kinetic aspects of the evolution are quite sensitive to the activation energy modelchosen. In contrast, morphological aspects of the evolution exhibit a similar qualitative behavior, irrespectiveof the activation energy model considered. It is shown that this common behavior closely agrees with predic-tions from the continuous theory of surface diffusion-driven interface decay.