Height fluctuations and intermittency of V 2 O 5 films by atomic force microscopy

The spatial scaling law and intermittency of the V2O5 surface roughness has been investigated by atomic force microscopy. The intermittency of the height fluctuations has been checked by two different methods, first, by measuring the scaling exponent of the qth moment of height-difference fluctuations i.e. Cq = 〈|h(x1)− h(x2)|q〉, and second, by defining the generating function Z(q, N) and generalized multi-fractal dimension Dq . These methods predict that there is no intermittency in the height fluctuations. The observed roughness and dynamical exponents can be explained by numerical simulation on the basis of the forced Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equation. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)