Morphological and Structural Aspects of Thin Films Prepared by Vapor Deposition

This chapter deals with the morphological and structural aspects of thin films prepared by vapor deposition. The elaboration of materials as thin films has been the topic of a large number of investigations since these films became technologically important. Many of the most important properties of thin films are related to the film structure and specifically to film surface morphology. Eventual control of the film structure and surface morphology has been generally considered important for achieving better control of the final film quality. If this goal is rather difficult to achieve, the enormous technological advances that have been taking place in the past decade make it even more complicated. The development of new morphological characterization techniques at such short length scales, such as the scanning probe microscopies, makes routine evaluation of film surface morphology possible at the nanometer-micrometer scale. Thin films can be prepared by a variety of methods, but deposition from a gas phase is—by far—the method that has given rise to the most used techniques: physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD).