CHANGES IN THE SURFACE-MORPHOLOGY OF GLASS DUE TO ABRASION AND THE DEPOSITION OF SOL-GEL THIN-FILMS

The surface topolographies of soda-lime and silica glasses have been i nvestigated through the use of an atomic force microscope. The roughen ing effect on their morphology of diamond-powder abrasive pastes, as w ell as the smoothing effect of multiple tetraethyl orthosilicate sol-g el films made by dip coating were studied, and quantitative measures o f the root mean square surface roughness were obtained. These measurem ents were then related to laser light scattering from the surface thro ugh the use of the Kirchoff-Beclanann model.