Growth Of Metallic Thin Films Research Articles

Surface topography and thin film growth.

The correlation of surface topography with the growth of metal thin films is reviewed. UHV-cleaved surfaces of ionic crystals such as NaCl, KCl, KBr, and MgO have fine structures distinguished in six characteristic zones : (1) Starting zone; (2) V-zone; (3) transition zone; (4) tartan zone; (5) stop-band zone; (6) restarting zone. Epitaxy, non-epitaxy, and graphoepitaxy of Sn are strongly influenced by these surface zones of the NaCl and KCl substrates. In the case of Au films, structural changes as well as morphological changes occur at the steps of the NaCl substrate. In addition, for Au/NaCl, quantitative results by the discrete variational Xα cluster method are indicated. On the other hand, the graphoepitaxy proposed first by H.I. Smith and co-workers is characterized by “epitaxial” growth on amorphous substrates having artificially produced surface-relief structures. Some experiments concerning graphoepitaxy are introduced.

Pseudomorphism in ultra-thin metal films

Abstract Current models of the processes preceding nucleation and epitaxial growth of metal thin films on metallic substrates are reviewed briefly, with particular reference to field emission and field ion microscope studies of metallic adsorbates on tungsten. It is concluded that many aspects of the phenomena of pseudomorphism, and of crystal nucleation at high adsorbate coverages, can be understood in terms of the structural features of the substrate surface and the strength of the adsorbate-substrate interaction.