SURFACE ROUGHENING AND COLUMNAR GROWTH OF THIN AMORPHOUS CUTI FILMS

Different growth stages and the microstructure of amorphous CuTi films are investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy and small angle neu tron scattering. During film growth at room temperature, the initially smooth films show increasing surface roughening and finally a change to a columnar growth mode with column diameters of about 20 nm. The in terfacial energies associated with the column boundaries are higher th an those of grain boundaries in crystalline systems. The column bounda ries might be the origin of high intrinsic tensile stresses measured b efore in the amorphous CuTi films. (C) 1997 American Institute of Phys ics.