SCALING THEORY FOR THE GROWTH OF AMORPHOUS FILMS

We present a scaling theory for the time evolution of the morphology of amorphous films, based on the Huygens principle growth algorithm. During the coarsening stage of the growth, the time-dependent correlation length diverges with time as (t)tp. We calculate p for a range of random and self-similar starting surfaces. When the effect of noise is taken into account, the exponent p reaches a universal value (3/4, in good agreement with experiments. © 1990 The American Physical Society.