Mesoscopic Roughness Characterization of Grown Surfaces by Atomic Force Microscopy

Mesoscopic roughness of material surfaces grown on (or dissolved from) flat substrates is described in terms of its scale dependence. It is demonstrated that three parameters, including the characteristic correlation length and the anisotropy exponent of scaling, in addition to the scale independent rms roughness on long length scales, describe well the scaling behavior of roughness. A procedure to derive these parameters from atomic force microscopy data is also discussed.