Multifractal analysis of DLC thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

In this study, multifractal analysis was performed on the atomic force microscopy (AFM) images of the surface morphologies of the diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method on the silicon (Si) substrate at different substrate temperatures. In order to do this, multifractal spectra f(α) of AFM micrographs was used to characterize the surface morphology of thin films. The results obtained from multifractal spectra f(α) illustrate that the effect of substrate temperatures on the width of spectrum and ∆f is apparent. Multifractal analysis indicated that the surface of DLC thin films deposited at different substrate temperatures have a multifractal nature. It was observed that the width of the singularity spectrum, non-uniformity of the height distributions and also surface roughness of the DLC thin films increase with increasing substrate temperature. Our results clearly demonstrate that multifractal approach could efficiently describe the AFM images of the surface morphologies of the DLC thin films.