Determination of grain size distributions in thin films

Abstract

This paper describes a method to characterise the distribution of grain sizes in thin films. Techniques have been developed and tested to prove that a lognormal distribution is applicable to the samples measured. Use has been made of a particle size analyser and software to enable tests of the fit to the data to be performed. Three sample sets of different sizes have been examined and it is concluded that 500+ samples of data are required for any measurement to be deemed accurate. We have compared grain sizes obtained by TEM with data from an AFM and have deemed the AFM technique to have a clear advantage.