Heteroepitaxial growth is a process where crystals are grown
one layer at a time using a molecular beam in a vacuum.
When strain is present these systems can form three dimensional
islands often called quantum dots. This is a nanoscale process
and continuum models struggle to capture many of the phenomena
that occur. Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) is an alternative approach which
is quite promising but has had limited use in strained systems
due to a variety computational bottle necks. In this talk, I will
outline KMC models for strained epitaxial growth and
how one can go about performing simulations in an efficient manner.