Kinetic scaling of fractal growth of thin films

The fractal growth of two-dimensional thin films on metal surface is studied by means of kinetic Monte Carlo simulation, using realistic growth model and physical parameters. Emphasis is given to time dependence of the size S(t) and branch width b(t) of the island. It is found that the island size S(t) grows with time t as t (k), where growth exponent k is slightly less than one when averaged from all islands. Similar results for the branch width of islands are also obtained from the simulations at not very low coverage, i. e., b(t) proportional to t (alpha). The kinetic scaling values k and alpha of fractal growth of thin films may be helpful to understand the growth mechanism of thin films.