Deposition and growth of Cu thin films on Si(1 0 0), Si(1 1 0) and Si(1 1 1) substrates are studied usingmolecular dynamics method. The Cu/Si interface diffusion, surface roughness, crystalline structure andgrowth orientation of Cu thin films are investigated in detail. The effects of substrate surface and temperatureare analyzed. Our simulation results show that the number of Cu atoms getting across the substratesurface for Si(1 1 1) substrate is the largest, and the number for Si(1 1 0) substrate is the smallest. This iscaused by the difference of the linear atomic densities and planar atomic densities of Si crystal in differentdirections and planes. The growth of Cu thin films deposited on Si(1 0 0) substrate is (1 0 0) orientedat low temperature, and gradually changes to be (1 1 1) oriented as the increasing of substrate temperature.On the other side, the growth of Cu thin films deposited on Si(1 1 0) and Si(1 1 1) substrates is always (1 1 1) oriented. Increasing substrate temperature could effectively reduce surface roughness, increase thenumber of Cu atoms with face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, but meanwhile increase the Cu/Si interfacediffusion. Under the same substrate temperature condition, the number of Cu atoms with fcc structurein thin films deposited on Si(1 1 0) substrate is larger than that deposited on Si(1 1 1) substrate. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2013.03.109]

The article was published as:
Zhang J,Liu C,Fan J. Comparison of Cu thin films deposited on Si substrates with different surfaces and temperatures. APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE, 2013, 276:417-423, doi: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2013.03.109