Breakdown of Dynamic Scaling in Surface Growth under Shadowing

Abstract

Using Monte Carlo simulations and experimental results, we show that for common thin film deposition techniques, such as sputter deposition and chemical vapor deposition, a mound structure can be formed with a characteristic length scale, or "wavelength" lambda, that describes the separation of the mounds. We show that the temporal evolution of lambda is distinctly different from that of the mound size, or lateral correlation length xi. The formation of a mound structure is due to nonlocal growth effects, such as shadowing, that lead to the breakdown of the self-affinity of the morphology described by the well-established dynamic scaling theory. We show that the wavelength grows as a function of time in a power law form, lambda approximately t(p), where p approximately equals 0.5 for a wide range of growth conditions, while the mound size grows as xi approximately t(1-z), where 1/z varies depending on growth conditions.