Mono-fractal analysis of CuXO films: Texture and phase distribution

Several studies on thermally-grown copper oxide films dealing with their crystalline properties and main phases as functions of the growth temperature have been published; notwithstanding, few research works have proposed a description of the surface morphology of the films using mono-fractal analysis. In this work, copper oxide films were grown by direct thermal oxidation in atmospheric air at different temperatures and times to obtain experimental proof of the phases present in the films by XRD, FTIR and Raman. The textural properties of the copper oxide films were analyzed from atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. The box counting and information fractal dimensions were used to perform the mono-fractal analysis to establish a correlation between the textural properties and the phases of the CuxO films.