Adatom lifetime in film growth at solid surfaces in the framework of the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov model

On the basis of the quasi-static approximation and for simultaneous nucleation the adatom lifetime, tau, during film growth at solid surfaces has been computed by Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. The quantity DN(0)tau, N-0, and D being respectively the cluster density and the adatom diffusion coefficient, is found to depend upon the portion of surface covered by clusters and, very weakly, on N-0. Moreover, a stochastic approach based on the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov (JMAK) theory has been developed to obtain the analytical expression of the MC curve. The collision factor of the mean island has been calculated and compared with those previously obtained from the uniform depletion approximation and the lattice approximation. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.