An X-Ray Line Broadening Analysis in the Vacuum-Evaporated Silver Films

An X-ray integral breadth analysis has been made for the 111, 200, 220, 311 and 222 diffraction profiles recorded on a Geiger counter X-ray diffractometer from the vacuum-evaporated thin films of silver in the range of thickness 580 to 2125 Å. The analysis based on the methods of single and multiple order of reflection has yielded values for the effective particle sizes and non-uniform micro-strains in the films from a consideration of Gaussian, Cauchy and intermediate parabolic form of distribution, the Gaussian distribution being more favourable. The effective particle size values are found to be small and the strains quite appreciable and these effects which are the manifestations of lattice imperfections present in the films decrease very slowly with increasing film thickness. The dislocation density ρ calculated for the [111] direction from the particle size and strain values for the films above 1000 Å thick is of the order of 10 11 cm/cm 3 comparable to that observed for the heavily deformed bulk materials. The error analysis done for the first time has further shown the effect of background estimation on the particle size and strain determinations for the range of film thickness considered.