Monte Carlo simulation of circular grain growth

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out to study the effect of temperature on the growth kinetics of a circular grain. This work demonstrates the importance of roughening fluctuations on the growth dynamics. Since the effect of thermal fluctuations is stronger in d =2 than in d =3, as predicted by d =3 theories of domain kinetics, the circular domain shrinks linearly with time as A (t)=A(0)-at, where A (0) and A(t) are the initial and instantaneous areas, respectively. However, in contrast to d =3, the slope a is strongly temperature dependent for T=0.6TC. An analytical theory which considers the thermal fluctuations agrees with the T dependence of the Monte Carlo data in this regime, and this model show that these fluctuations are responsible for the strong temperature dependence of the growth rate for d =2. Our results are particularly relevant to the problem of domain growth in surface science. © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.