Simulation of multilayer Cu/Pd(100) heteroepitaxial growth by pulse laser deposition

The heteroepitaxial growth of multilayer Cu/Pd(100) thin film via pulse laser deposition (PLD) at room temperature is simulated by using kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) method with realistic physical parameters. The effects of mass transport between interlayers, edge diffusion of adatoms along the islands and instantaneous deposition are considered in the simulation model. Emphasis is placed on revealing the details of multilayer Cu/Pd(100) thin film growth and estimating the Ehrlich--Schwoebel (ES) barrier. It is shown that the instantaneous deposition in the PLD growth gives rise to the layer-by-layer growth mode, persisting up to about 9 monolayers (ML) of Cu/Pd(100). The ES barriers of 0.08\pm0.01 eV is estimated by comparing the KMC simulation results with the real scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) measurements.