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A growth mechanism of ramified aggregates on nonlattice substrates with fixed impurities is studied systematically. Based on the experimental observations of Au atomic aggregates on molten glass surfaces, an Improved Restricted Cluster-Cluster Aggregation (IRCCA) model is established. In this model, fixed impurities are distributed randomly on a nonlattice substrate, and all the aggregates with different sizes are allowed to diffuse and rotate. The influence of the liquid substrate and impurity on the structure of the ramified aggregates is studied systematically. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental findings.

Most studies of thin film growth simulations are performed on flat substrates. However, in reality, a substrate is usually miscut leading to a vicinal surface with a small tilt. The goal of this work is to study effects of an initial configuration of a miscut substrate on the grown film. The Das Sarma–Tamborenea model with modified diffusion rules is used for the simulations. The modification is done to allow variation in the surface diffusion length and mobility of adatoms. The results show that the optimum conditions that lead to step-flow growth are long diffusion length and small step height.

Hexagonal ferrites (h-RFeO₃, R = Y, Dy-Lu) have recently been identified as a new family of multiferroic complex oxides. The coexisting spontaneous electric and magnetic polarizations make h-RFeO₃ rare-case ferroelectric ferromagnets at low temperature. Plus the room-temperature multiferroicity and the predicted magnetoelectric effect, h-RFeO₃ are promising materials for multiferroic applications. Here we review the structural, ferroelectric, magnetic and magnetoelectric properties of h-RFeO₃. The thin film growth is also discussed because it is critical in making high quality single crystalline materials for studying intrinsic properties.

Among several aspects concerning the growth of thin films on solid surfaces, we focus our discussion on the physical observable known as the island size distribution function (SDF). Since this is a subject large enough to require a full review, even a whole book, we have limited our survey to the scaling properties of the distribution function and to some of its possible shapes. In particular, we discuss the fast and slow nucleation processes in diffusional growth and the KJMA (Kolmogorov–Johnson–Mehl–Avrami) distributions. Space has been given to the mathematical demonstration of the principal equations, in order to render the paper usable also to neophytes of thin film growth. Experimental particle (SDFs) are also reported and discussed.