Microscopic aspects of homoepitaxial growth

Despite the careful experimental work on the kinetic origin of the island shapes during the growth, a complete qualitative and quantitative theoretical analysis is still missing. In this paper we present the results of realistic Monte Carlo simulations of the growth of Al on Al(111). Our simulations are based on microscopic well-founded parameters derived from ab initio calculations. Reliable general criteria for interpreting the role the substrate temperature during the homoepitaxial growth on metallic fcc (111) and hcp (1000) surfaces are extracted. In particular, the importance of the asymmetry in the jump probability of fourfold coordinated adatoms and the different diffusion mechanism of the adatoms along the close-packed steps are discussed.