Thermally evaporated aluminium thin films

Aluminium thin films were grown on quartz substrates by metal thermal evapo ration, with thicknesses between 18 and 100 nm and evaporation rates from 1 to 20 Angstrom /s. The surface morphology of the films was examined by ato mic force microscopy imaging and cross-compared. The change of the estimate d surface roughness with film thickness and evaporation rate was investigat ed and discussed. The optical transmission of the films was measured from 2 00 to 800 nm and correlated to the corresponding surface morphology as dete rmined by the film thickness and evaporation rate. The goal is to optimize the use of thermally evaporated aluminium films as semitransparent electrod es in fast photoconduction experiments involving molecular stacks of discot ic liquid crystals. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.