Many types of films grow in an extremely anisotropic manner. These include primarily covalently bonded materials such as diamond and gallium nitride and ionic material such as MgO. In chemical vapor deposition, the flux of growth species onto the surface is nearly homogeneous, while in sputtering and evaporation the deposition flux is, to some degree, collimated. In this talk, I will discuss anisotropic film growth both from the atomic and microstructure/morphology perspectives. Atomistic simulations will be used to analyze how initially flat surfaces develop facets (kinetic Monte Carlo) and how intially unfacetted islands facet (molecular dynamics). I will then show how information on growth anisotropy can be used to predict the evolution of the morphology and microstructure of faceted, polycrystalline films both in cases in which the deposition flux is homogeneous and in which the flux is collimated. I will conclude by discussing some new applications where morphology evolution is used to control defect density. Collaborators: Paritosh, C. Battaile, P. Smereka, X. Li, and D. Du.
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