EVALUATION OF APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF METALLIC SURFACES

摘要

Various approaches to determine the roughness of a metallic surface are examined. A direct approach is considered the most feasible in study¬ing the actual rather than the effective topography.nThe proposed instrument makes use of the de Broglie matter waves and thus accomplishes a theoretical resolution of 0.75 A. Fifty-KV helium ions bombard the specimen at a small angle. The reflected ions are magnified through an ion microscope which detects a signal proportional to the quan-tity of the impinging ions. The surface of the metal is scanned and the detected signal, after being amplified, is recorded as a function of scan-ning. By comparing the results with a standard pattern of roughness, abso-lute measurements of surface fluctuations to the desired order of magnitude are made possible.