Nucleation and growth kinetics of palladium nanoparticles on thin films of MgO (100)

Abstract

The Nucleation and growth kinetics of Pd nanoparticles on thin films of MgO (100) are simulated by developing numerous programs using Fortran software. This calculation is based upon parameters studied in situ by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), related to the first quantitative study on the nucleation and the growth of Pd/ MgO(100). The deposited Palladium nanoparticles are tested in the temperature range 573–1073 K and deposition time of 1000 s. The nucleation kinetics is interpreted according to the theory of random nucleation. The general scheme is consisting of three stages namely, nucleation, growth and coalescence. The saturation density of clusters decreases when the substrate temperature increases following Arrhenius law. This behavior is in agreement with a recent AFM study for Ag/MgO and Au/MgO. The phenomenon of coalescence is explained via island migration process. It is shown that the coalescence occurs more rapidly when the substrate temperature is high.

Keywords: Nucleation, Growth, Simulation, Palladium, MgO (100)