Surface scaling analysis of textured MgO thin films fabricated by energetic particle self-assisted deposition

In the fabrication of a high-temperature superconducting coated conductor, the surface roughness and texture of buffer layers can significantly affect the epitaxially grown superconductor layer. A biaxially textured MgO buffer layer fabricated by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) is widely used in the coated conductor manufacture due to its low thickness requirement. In our previous study, a new method called energetic particle self-assisted deposition (EPSAD), which employed only a sputtering deposition apparatus without an ion source, was proposed for fabricating biaxially textured MgO films on non-textured substrates. In this study, our aim was to investigate the deposition mechanism of EPSAD-MgO thin films. The behavior of the surface roughness (evaluated by Rq) was studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements with three scan scales, while the in-plane and out-of-plane textures were measured using X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that the variations of surface roughness and textures along with the increase in the thickness of EPSAD-MgO samples were very similar to those of IBAD-MgO reported in the literature, revealing the similarity of their deposition mechanisms. Moreover, fractal geometry was utilized to conduct the scaling analysis of EPSAD-MgO film's surface. Different scaling behaviors were found in two scale ranges, and the indications of the fractal properties in different scale ranges were discussed.