  We report a kinetic Monte Carlo modeling study of nanocrystal layer
sintering. Features that are of interest for the dynamics of the layer as a
whole, especially the morphology of the evolving structure, are considered. It
is found that the kinetics of sintering is not entirely a local process, with
the layer morphology affected by the kinetics in a larger than few-particle
neighborhood. Consideration of a single layer of particles makes the numerics
manageable and allows visualization of the results, as well as numerical
simulations of several realizations for statistical averaging of properties of
interest. We identify optimal regimes for sintering, considering several
particle size distributions and temperature control protocols.
