Atomistic modeling of thin-film processes provides an avenue not only for discovering key chemical mechanisms of the processes but also to extract quantitative metrics on the events and reactions taking place at the gas-surface interface. Molecular dynamics is a powerful computational method to study the evolution of a process at the atomic scale, but studies of industrially relevant processes usually require suitable force fields, which are, in general, not available for all processes of interest. However, machine-learned force fields (MLFFs) are conquering the field of computational materials and surface science. In this paper, we demonstrate how to efficiently build MLFFs suitable for process simulations and provide two examples for technologically relevant processes: a precursor pulse in the atomic layer deposition of and atomic layer etching of .
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Research Article|
March 24 2025
On simulating thin-film processes at the atomic scale using machine-learned force fields
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S. Kondati Natarajan
;
S. Kondati Natarajan
a)
(Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft)
1
Synopsys Denmark ApS
, Fruebjergvej 3, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
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J. Schneider;
J. Schneider
(Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Writing – review & editing)
1
Synopsys Denmark ApS
, Fruebjergvej 3, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
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N. Pandey;
N. Pandey
(Formal analysis, Investigation)
2
Synopsys India Pvt. Ltd.
, DLF Tech Park, Noida, UP 201307, India
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J. Wellendorff
;
J. Wellendorff
(Project administration, Writing – review & editing)
1
Synopsys Denmark ApS
, Fruebjergvej 3, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
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S. Smidstrup
S. Smidstrup
(Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Resources, Software, Writing – review & editing)
1
Synopsys Denmark ApS
, Fruebjergvej 3, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
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S. Kondati Natarajan
1,a)
J. Schneider
1
N. Pandey
2
J. Wellendorff
1
S. Smidstrup
1
1
Synopsys Denmark ApS
, Fruebjergvej 3, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
2
Synopsys India Pvt. Ltd.
, DLF Tech Park, Noida, UP 201307, India
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 43, 033404 (2025)
Article history
Received:
December 09 2024
Accepted:
March 03 2025
Citation
S. Kondati Natarajan, J. Schneider, N. Pandey, J. Wellendorff, S. Smidstrup; On simulating thin-film processes at the atomic scale using machine-learned force fields. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 1 May 2025; 43 (3): 033404. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0004288
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