Co-GISAXS technique for investigating surface growth dynamics

Journal Article · Tue Dec 08 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.214102· OSTI ID:1245018

Rainville, Meliha G.; Hoskin, Christa; Ulbrandt, Jeffrey G.; Narayanan, Suresh; Sandy, Alec R.; Zhou, Hua; Headrick, Randall L.

Detailed quantitative measurement of surface dynamics during thin film growth is a major experimental challenge. Here X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy with coherent hard X-rays is used in a Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (i.e. Co-GISAXS) geometry as a new tool to investigate nanoscale surface dynamics during sputter deposition of a-Si and a-WSi2 thin films. For both films, kinetic roughening during surface growth reaches a dynamic steady state at late times in which the intensity autocorrelation function g2(q,t) becomes stationary. The g2(q,t) functions exhibit compressed exponential behavior at all wavenumbers studied. The overall dynamics are complex, but the most surface sensitive sections of the structure factor and correlation time exhibit power law behaviors consistent with dynamical scaling.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1245018
• Journal Information: Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, Vol. 92, Issue 21; ISSN 1098-0121
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English