Evidence of local and global scaling regimes in thin films deposited by sputtering: An atomic force microscopy and electrochemical study

Abstract

The surface morphology of NiOx thin films deposited by rf sputtering was studied by atomic force microscopy and by cyclic voltammetry. Linear relationships were observed in log–log plots of the interface width versus window length and in log–log plots of the peak current versus scan rate. Two different slopes were observed, by both techniques, indicating that distinct growth dynamics present in the system can be measured in different ways. Moreover, the calculated fractal dimensions are in excellent agreement: the local scaling regime corresponds to high scan rates and the global scaling regime corresponds to low scan rates, in accordance with the expected behavior for diffusion fronts.

A New Class of Zn1‐xFex–Oxyselenide and Zn1‐xFex–LDH Nanostructured Material with Remarkable Bifunctional Oxygen and Hydrogen Evolution Electrocatalytic Activities for Overall Water Splitting

“…From the obtained AFM data, it is observed that the nanosheets after selenization were rougher than the Zn 1‐ x Fe x –LDH nanosheet . Since the electrophysical–chemical properties of the material are strongly dependent on surface roughness, the as‐synthesized materials are expected to show distinct catalytic activities …”

“…[47,48] Since the electrophysical-chemical properties of the material are strongly dependent on surface roughness, the as-synthesized materials are expected to show distinct catalytic activities. [49] Further, in order to get better insights into the structuralrelated information, high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM) was carried out.…”

A novel industrial thin film deposition technology for sustainable CdTe photovoltaics

“…CdTe grains are characterized by using the circularlyaveraged autocorrelation function g(r) where the averaged value for the grain's radius is obtained from the position of the first zero-crossing of g(r) (Fig. 1) [15]. The average grain radius measured is 466 ± 23 nm.…”

Surface anisotropy characterization and microstructure of Cu–W thin films at different annealing temperatures

“…In fact, few studies have been conducted to quantitatively describe the relationship between surface morphology and film microstructure. Substantial amounts of efforts have been directed to the quantitative description of the morphology of rough surfaces and interfaces of thin films [6,7].…”