| Abstract Scope |
Surface irregularities, such as grooves, protruding grains, or hillocks, often accompany bulk defects like porosity during the physical vapor co-deposition of immiscible alloy films. While the formation of surface irregularities is typically attributed to internal residual stresses arising from differences in the thermal expansion coefficients between the film and the substrate, the influence of interfacial energies, surface contact angles, deposition rates, and temperature on defect formation in co-deposited films remains inadequately understood. To address this gap, we present a phase-field approach to numerically investigate the impact of thermodynamical and processing parameters on the morphological evolution of hillocks in nanostructured alloy films. Through statistical descriptors, we deduce and correlate hillock spacing and width with deposition parameters, offering valuable insights into the kinetic pathways of hillock formation and film porosity while unraveling a hidden length scale correlation present at all contact angles. |