Particle-resolved dynamics during multilayer growth of C${}_{60}$

Abstract

Using large-scale kinetic Monte-Carlo (KMC) simulations, we investigate the non-equilibrium surface growth of the fullerene C${}_{60}$. Recently, we have presented a self-consistent set of energy barriers that describes the nucleation and multilayer growth of C${}_{60}$ for different temperatures and adsorption rates in quantitative agreement with experiments [Bommel et al., Nat. Comm. 5, 5388 (2014)]. We found that C${}_{60}$ displays lateral diffusion resembling colloidal systems, however it has to overcome an atom-like energetic step-edge barrier for interlayer diffusion. Here, we focus on the particle-resolved dynamics, and the interplay between surface morphology and particle dynamics during growth. Comparing C${}_{60}$ growth with an atom-like system, we find significant differences in the evolution of the surface morphology, as well as the single-particle dynamics on the growing material landscape. By correlating the mean-squared-displacement of particles with their current neighborhood, we can identify the influence of the different time scales that compete during growth and can pinpoint the differences between the two systems.

References in corpus (2)

• Nucleation and growth of thin films of rod--like conjugated molecules
• A three-dimensional self-learning kinetic Monte Carlo model: application to Ag(111)