Roughness effects on the electrical conductivity of thin films grown in a quasi-layer-by-layer mode

Abstract

We investigate morphology effects on the electrical conductivity on thin semiconducting and metallic films grown in a quasi-layer-by-layer growth mode within the framework of quantum-mechanical electron transport theory. The film growth mode is described by a nonequilibrium Sine–Gordon model that incorporates evaporation/recondensation, surface diffusion, and lattice pinning effects. For semiconducting films, pinning effects manifest themselves as oscillations superimposed on a smoothly increasing conductivity with growth time. For metallic films, quantum size effect oscillations are strongly convoluted with pinning induced oscillations, which dominate the conductivity variations at later stages of growth.