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Columnar architectured thin films – deposition, microstructure and related properties♣

N. STARBOV1,* , K. STARBOVA1

Affiliation

  1. Central Laboratory of Photoprocesses “Acad. J. Malinowski”, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Acad. Georgi Bonchev Str., Block 109, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

A great variety of inorganic and organic thin films are deposited via Joule heating- or electron beam-evaporation in high vacuum. It is shown that in a proper range of basic deposition parameters such as substrate temperature, deposition rate and vapor incidence angle, thin films with micro- or nano-sized surface features and column-like internal structure can be grown. Column inclination toward the substrate plane, as well as a pronounced anisotropy of the column cross section at high vapor incidence angles is established. The revealed internal film structure is found to influence the microhardness, thermal diffusivity, DC-electric conductivity and effective refractive index, by inducing in-plane anisotropy. This is most pronounced at high vapor incidence angles, which is explained by specific morphological features of the films studied. Our results confirm the occurrence of general columnar growth phenomena based on a simple physical self-shadowing mechanism of the ad-species during the early and advanced stages of thin film deposition. Finally, the advantage of the glancing angle deposition technique is discussed as an opportunity for the versatile fabrication of micro- and nano-porous coatings with high specific surface suitable for a large spectrum of applications in catalysis, sensor technology, biomedical engineering etc..

Keywords

Obliquely deposited thin films, Microstructure, Physical properties, Applications.

Submitted at: Nov. 5, 2008
Accepted at: Sept. 9, 2009

Citation

N. STARBOV, K. STARBOVA, Columnar architectured thin films – deposition, microstructure and related properties♣, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 11, Iss. 9, pp. 1093-1100 (2009)