Amorphous thin-film growth: Theory compared with experiment

Experimental results on amorphous ZrAlCu thin-film growth and the dynamics of the surface morphology as predicted from a minimal nonlinear stochastic deposition equation are analysed and compared. Key points of this study are : i) an estimation procedure for coefficients entering into the growth equa tion and ii) a detailed analysis and interpretation of the time evolution o f the correlation length and the surface roughness. The results corroborate the usefulness of the deposition equation as a tool for studying amorphous growth processes.