Ballistic deposition onto inclined surfaces

Simulations of ballistic deposition onto an inclined surface (deposition at non-normal incidence) have been carried out using two-dimensional lattice and off-lattice models and three-dimensional off-lattice models. For most of these models the relationship between the angle of incidence (θ) and the angle of growth (φ) is given by φ=$C_1$θ for small angles of incidence and φ=θ-$C_2$ for large angles of incidence. The constant parameters $C_1$ and $C_2$ are sensitive to model details. All of our results deviate strongly from the tangent rule (tanφ=(1/2tanθ). For small (near-normal) angles of incidence the thickness of the deposit surface (ξ) is related to the mean height of the surface (h¯) by ξ∼h${¯}^{\beta }$ where the exponent β has a value of about (1/3. As θ is increased β increases and approaches a limiting value of about (1/2 for θ→π/2. Similarly, the exponents ${\nu }_{?}$ and τ which describe the internal substructure of these compact deposits change from values of 0.6 and 1.4 for normal incidence to values of about (2/3 and (4/3 for grazing incidence.