Improvement in the method of searching for the fractal nature of rough thin-film top surfaces

Abstract

It was previously shown how the fractal nature of thin-film top surfaces can be obtained from the surface relief reconstructed by microdensitometer analysis of an electron micrograph of a shadowed replica of the surface. Here, we present some improvement in the determination of the fractal dimension Dl which characterizes a planar section of the thin film, as well as a different way of conducting such a determination. Results connected with several rough thin films are given and it is found that many different ways of characterizing the fractal nature of a thin-film top surface are possible from the reconstructed relief of the surface to be studied.