Electrical conductivity and thin-film growth dynamics

It is known that surface steps can give rise to diffusion barriers and generate moundlike rough surfaces during thin-film growth. We study the influence of moundlike rough surfaces on electron scattering and electrical conductivity of semiconducting and metallic thin films. For a semiconducting film, the intraminiband cutoff qc limits the contribution from mound surface scattering. Three different cases are illustrated to show how surface morphology affects the conductivity: q0<qc , q0=qc , and q0>qc. Here q0 is the ring position of the surface power spectrum. For a metallic film with a single rough boundary, quantum size effect (QSE) oscillations are shifted in phase and weakened by the presence of wavelength selection in surface morphology. In this case, the conductivity reaches a minimum at a certain value of the system correlation length ζ when the mound separation λ obeys the condition λ>λF or λ