Amorphous thin film growth: theory compared with experiment

TL;DR

This paper compares experimental results of amorphous ZrAlCu thin film growth with predictions from a minimal nonlinear stochastic model, analyzing surface morphology evolution and validating the model's usefulness.

Contribution

It introduces an estimation procedure for growth equation coefficients and provides a detailed analysis of surface morphology evolution in amorphous thin films.

Findings

The growth model accurately predicts surface roughness evolution.

Correlation length dynamics align with experimental data.

The deposition equation is validated as a useful tool for amorphous growth studies.

Abstract

Experimental results on amorphous ZrAlCu thin film growth and the dynamics of the surface morphology as predicted from a minimal nonlinear stochastic deposition equation are analysed and compared. Key points of this study are (i) an estimation procedure for coefficients entering into the growth equation and (ii) a detailed analysis and interpretation of the time evolution of the correlation length and the surface roughness. The results corroborate the usefulness of the deposition equation as a tool for studying amorphous growth processes.