Surface roughening and texture of the poly-crystalline columnar copper films

Cu thin films with different orientation components were deposited on Si (111) and Al₂O₃ substrates by magnetron sputtering technology at room temperature. The dynamic scaling method was used to characterize the surface roughening of two kinds of films. The results show that the growth exponent β increases when the intensity of Cu (111) orientation increases. The surface roughening mechanism of polycrystalline columnar films has been proposed to explain the phenomenon, in which the influence of grain configuration and grain boundary can be negligible and the film texture has an important effect on the scaling behavior of surface roughening.