Crystalline orientation and surface structure anisotropy of annealed thin tungsten films

The correlation between texture coefficient T₁₁₀ and surface structure anisotropy of thin metal film is constructed with an approach of integrating the discrete wavelet transform and fractal geometry concepts. The research is based on experimental results of tungsten films of different thickness that were deposited on an Si (100) substrate by magnetron sputtering and then annealed in vacuum at 400 °C for 1 h. The fact that there exists a definite relation between crystal orientation and surface morphology for the annealed W thin films suggests that the changes of film texture coefficient T₁₁₀ depend on the competition between strain energy and surface energy. This energy-depending evolution of surface structures of annealed W film is apparently a function of film's thickness.