Atomistic insights into aluminum doping effect on surface roughness of deposited ultra-thin silver films

Ultra-thin and continuous metallic silver films are attracting growing interest due to the applications in flexible transparent conducting electrodes. The surface morphology and structure of silver film are very important for its electrical resistivity and optical loss. Therefore, roughness control is essential for the production of ultra-thin metallic electrode film. We have investigated the effect of aluminum doping on the improvement of surface morphology of ultra-thin silver films using molecular dynamics simulations. Al-doped silver films showed smaller surface roughness than pure silver films at various substrate temperatures. When the temperature of the substrate was 600 K, the roughness of Al-doped silver film first decreased, and then increased with the increase of the incident velocity of silver atoms. Silver atoms were more likely to agglomerate on the surface of the substrate after adding aluminum atoms, as aluminum dopants promoted the immobilization of silver atoms on SiO₂ substrate due to the anchoring effect. The smoother surface could be attributable to the reduced mean free path of silver due to the cage effect by the aluminum dopant.