STATIC AND DYNAMIC ASPECTS OF THE RMS LOCAL SLOPE OF GROWING RANDOM SURFACES

In this work, we investigated static and dynamic aspects of the rms lo cal surface slope ''rho'' for self-affine random surfaces. The rms loc al slope is expressed as a function of the rms roughness amplitude sig ma, the in-plane correlation length xi, and the roughness exponent H ( 0<H<1), as well as is shown to scale as rho similar to sigma xi(-H). A pplication to room temperature heteroepitaxial silver films shows the rms local slope to be closely time invariant in the thickness range 10 <h<1000 nm with an asymptotic value rho approximate to 0.7. However, d iscrepancies in deposition details could alter the mode of film growth leading to a power law growth of the local slope as a function of the film thickness h; rho proportional to h(c) (c>0).