Growth and surface topography of cadmium films

Abstract

The growth of cadmium films deposited on amorphous glass substrate were studied using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy techniques. The analysis of the experimental data showed a very high preferred orientation of the crystallites with the crystallographic c-axis normal to the substrate, indicating a layer type growth with high preferred orientation of the basal planes parallel to the substrate. The films obtained at room temperature were polycrystalline in nature with large grain size. Surface features were studied using SEM, indicating a larger crystallite size for films grown on a few atomic layers of titanium on glass substrate.