Sculptured thin film

Sculptured thin films (STFs) are nanostructured materials with unidirectionally varying properties that can be designed and realized in a controllable manner using variants of physical vapor deposition. The ability to virtually instantaneously change the growth direction of their columnar morphology, through simple variations in the direction of the incident vapor flux, leads to a wide spectrum of columnar forms. Sculptured thin films (STFs) are nanostructured materials with unidirectionally varying properties that can be designed and realized in a controllable manner using variants of physical vapor deposition. The ability to virtually instantaneously change the growth direction of their columnar morphology, through simple variations in the direction of the incident vapor flux, leads to a wide spectrum of columnar forms.