Surface roughness scaling of plasma polymer films

Journal Article · Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1994 · Physical Review Letters; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.708· OSTI ID:7005298

Collins, G W; Letts, S A; Fearon, E M; McEachern, R L; Bernat, T P ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551 (United States)

Atomic force microscopy data reveal self-affine scaling of plasma polymer films. The rms surface roughness [sigma] increases with film thickness [tau] as [sigma]([ital f][lt][xi][sup [minus]1])[similar to][tau][beta], and with measurement length [ital L] as [sigma]([ital f][gt][ital L][sup [minus]1][gt][xi][sup [minus]1])[similar to][ital L][alpha], where [xi] is the surface roughness correlation length. At the deposition rate [ital R]=2[mu][ital m]/[ital h], the scaling exponents [alpha] and [beta] are 0.9 and 0.7, both increasing to 1 at [ital R]=1[mu][ital m]/[ital h]. A competition between surface relaxation and deposition rate determine [sigma] and [xi], which increase rapidly with [ital R] or inverse temperature.

• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 7005298
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters; (United States), Vol. 73:5; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
POLYMERS
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
GROWTH
MORPHOLOGY
ROUGHNESS
SCALING LAWS
STRESS RELAXATION
CHEMICAL COATING
DEPOSITION
RELAXATION
SURFACE COATING
SURFACE PROPERTIES
360601* - Other Materials- Preparation & Manufacture
360602 - Other Materials- Structure & Phase Studies
661300 - Other Aspects of Physical Science- (1992-)