Study of correlations in the relief of complex surfaces using the example of amorphous hydrogenated silicon

Abstract

The results of a study of correlations in the surface relief of amorphous hydrogenated silicon using the methods of average mutual information and two-dimensional detrended fluctuation analysis by identifying its structural components using the scale-space technique are presented. The experimental samples were model and real surfaces of amorphous hydrogenated silicon. The model surface was formed by superimposing the surfaces "Stochastic fractal", "Particles" and "Gaussian noise". The values of the scaling index were obtained from the dependences of the fluctuation function on the scale, as well as the values of the average mutual information and the maximum mutual information were calculated. A comparative analysis of the correlation dependencies of the model and the real surfaces of amorphous hydrogenated silicon has shown that the model surface "Particles" is closest to the surface structure of the experimental sample in terms of its characteristics. It was found that particles with dimensions of 65±10 nm are present in the surface structure of the experimental sample.