The role of self-shadowing on growth and scaling laws of faceted polycrystalline thin films Original Research Article

We investigate, via both experiment and simulation, the effects of self-shadowing on the growth of faceted polycrystalline thin films. Faceted aluminum thin films were sputtered and the anomalous scaling behaviour of their surfaces was characterized. To understand the causes of this anomalous behavior, growth of faceted thin films was simulated by coupling a level set construction to a ballistic deposition model. The angular distribution function of deposition flux was varied to control the degree of self-shadowing. We show how differing degrees of self-shadowing strongly modify film surface morphologies and compare these results with experimental findings.