Growth of vapor-deposited amorphous Zr65Al7.5Cu27.5 films under oblique particle incidence investigated by experiment and simulation

Amorphous thin film growth is of high scientific interest due to the possibility of identifying growth processes without the superposition of anisotropies. Oblique particle incidence offers the exciting possibility of breaking this isotropy in the plane of the substrate and of creating nanostructure films dependent on the tilt angle, which enters as an additional parameter. We investigate this structure formation and the nature of the underlying atomic-scale processes with experiments and computer simulations. This is achieved by a detailed film characterization using scanning tunneling microscopy and transmission electron microscopy and a numerical analysis of the data as well as with Monte Carlo and continuum growth models. Measures such as rms roughness or spectral power density are utilized for a quantitative characterization and comparison of experiment and theory. This allows us to identify surface diffusion, shadowing, and steering as the main ingredients for oblique film growth.