Ge epitaxial layers with reasonable quality were grown on Si (I 1 1) substrates by cluster beam deposition (CBD) process. Molecular dynamics study of the low energy Ge clusters deposition process utilizing the Stillinger-Weber two and three-body interaction potentials was carried out to compare the experimental results. Both experimental and simulation results prove that the substrate temperature plays a dominant role in the epitaxial growth of Ge films in CBD process. The influence mechanisms of temperature are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.