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Abstract
Microstructures of nickel surfaces electrodeposited on indium tin oxides coated glasses are investigated using atomic force
microscopy. The fractal dimension D and Hurst exponent H of the nickel surface images are determined from a frequency
analysis method proposed by Aguilar et al. [J. Microsc. 172 (1993) 233] and from Hurst rescaled range analysis. The two
methods are found to give the same value of the fractal dimension D , 2.0. The roughness exponent a and growth exponent b
that characterize scaling behaviors of the surface growth in electrodeposition are calculated using the height-difference
correlation function and interface width in Fourier space. The exponents of a , 1.0 and b , 0.8 show that the surface growth
does not belong to the universality classes theoretically predicted by statistical growth models. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Keywords: D. Microstructures; D. Electrochemical properties; D. Surface properties
1. Introduction
There have been recently considerable efforts in understanding the phenomenon of surface roughening in lm
growth [1]. Generally it is recognized that the surface
morphology and dynamics of growing surfaces by deposition obey simple scaling laws associated with scaling exponents such as a roughness exponent a [2,3]. The roughness
exponent a is determined from the height-difference correlation function G(r,t) that has the form [4],
Gr; t khr 1 r1 ; t 2 hr1 ; t2 lr1 / r 2a ; for r p j 1
where h(r,t) is the surface height, kl is the spatial average
over the measured area, and j the correlation length. The
quantity of a characterizes the roughness of the surfaces and
can be denitely related to statistical models of continuum
equations that have been introduced to understand surface
growth by deposition. For example, the KPZ equation [5] is
represented by
2hr; t=2t n7 2 hr; t 1 l7hr; t 2 =2 1 h;
0022-3697/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0022-369 7(01)00254-2
1686
82g
:
2
k;l
(
Sk; t k
21
0#i#k
k
X
i1
)1=2
hri ; t 2 khr; tli
9
;
and
Xk; t
uHm; nu2 / f 2g :
k
X
i1
10
1687
1688
fractal dimension D of thin lms electrodeposited on twodimensional substrates. In spite of their surface morphology
that seems to be a set of continuous mounds, the values of
the fractal dimension, nearly equal to 2.5 in the DLA model,
have been reported. We guess these values of the fractal
dimension are doubtful because of their inappropriate
methods for analysis of the fractal dimension.
Fig. 6 shows a loglog plot of G(r,t) vs the lateral
distance r for the electrodeposited nickel lms. It can been
seen that G(r,t) increases linearly with r and reaches a saturated value. The plateau point in Fig. 6 corresponds to the
correlation length j , which is equal to an average mound
size formed on the surface. As shown in Fig. 7, we obtain an
average value of a 0:96 ^ 0:04 that is equal to the Hurst
exponent determined from the R/S analysis.
Fig. 8 shows w(t) vs the growth time t in a loglog scale,
which gives the growth exponent b 0:80 ^ 0:07 according to Eq. (7). The values of w(t) are calculated in k space. In
general the theoretical value of b is 1/2 and below [2]. The
experimental value of b . 1=2 [1921] has been tentatively
explained by the Schwoebel effect [22] and shadowing [2].
Anyway the values of a , 1.0 and b , 0.8 do not belong to
any universal classes theoretically predicted by the statistical growth models.
4. Conclusion
The microstructures of the electrodeposited nickel surfaces are characterized by the fractal dimension D, the
Hurst exponent, the roughness exponent a , and the growth
exponent b using the AFM images. The fractal dimension
and Hurst exponent are determined from the FACA and R/S
analysis. The two methods gives the same value of the
fractal dimension D , 2.0, which is a reliable value. The
values of a , 1.0 and b , 0.8 for the electrodeposited
nickel lms indicate that the surface growth do not belong
to any universal classes theoretically predicted by the statistical growth models.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientic
Research (C), No. 13650029 by the Ministry of Education,
Science, and Culture of Japan.
References
[1] P. Meakin, Fractals, Scaling and Growth Far from Equilibrium, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
[2] A.-L. Barabasi, H.E. Stanley, Fractal Concepts in Surface
Growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.
[3] B.B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Freeman,
San Francisco, 1982.
[4] J.H. Jeffries, J.-K. Zuo, M.M. Craig, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76
(1996) 4931.
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