Study of the growth morphology of TiO2 thin films by AFM and TEM

High refractive index TiO2 thin films have been deposited by electron-beam evaporation on Si (111) wafers. The substrate temperature during deposition was maintained at 250°C and the deposition rate was approximately 0.05 nm/s. Qualitative film analysis was performed with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was noted that surface roughness of the film increases with layer thickness and that the growth morphology is different for the films evaporated under the same conditions. A correlation was established between the optical properties, surface roughness and growth morphology of the evaporated TiO2 thin films.