Machine learning predictions of surface migration barriers in nucleation and non-equilibrium growth

Abstract

Machine learning is playing an increasing role in the discovery of new materials and may also facilitate the search for optimum growth conditions for crystals and thin films. Here, we perform kinetic Monte-Carlo simulations of sub-monolayer growth. We consider a generic homoepitaxial growth scenario that covers a wide range of conditions with different diffusion barriers (0.4–0.55 eV) and lateral binding energies (0.1–0.4 eV). These simulations are used as a training data set for a convolutional neural network that can predict diffusion barriers and binding energies. Specifically, a single Monte-Carlo image of the morphology is sufficient to determine the energy barriers with an accuracy of approximately 10 meV and the neural network is tolerant to images with noise and lower than atomic-scale resolution. We believe this new machine learning method will be useful for fundamental studies of growth kinetics and growth optimization through better knowledge of microscopic parameters.