ESTIMATION OF KINETIC-PROPERTIES OF PARTICLES FORMING RANDOM ROUGH SURFACES

An investigation of kinetic properties (diffusion length and activatio n energy) for deposited particles that form films with rough surfaces is presented. Calculation of these properties is performed as a functi on of the roughness exponent H, the rms-roughness a and the in-plane c orrelation length xi of the final film surface morphology. The diffusi on length scales as d proportional to xi/sigma(1/H) for 0 < H less tha n or equal to 1 and possess an exponential behaviour d proportional to e(1/sigma 2) for H=O with a low sensitivity on xi. We illustrate our calculations for room temperature evaporated Ag films, where the estim ated diffusion lengths are d similar to 2-3 nm and the corresponding a ctivation energies E < 1 eV. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.