Quantitative characterization of obliquely-deposited substrates of gold by atomic force microscopy: influence of substrate topography on anchoring of liquid crystals

摘要

Scanning probe microscopy is used to quantitatively characterize structural anisotropy within obliquely deposited metal films. Whereas visual inspection of AFM images (real space or reciprocal space) reveals no obvious structural anisotropy within these gold films, by quantitative analysis of the AFM profiles, subtle structural anisotropy is observed. The quantitative characterization provides a method to estimate the influence of anisotropy on the orientations of supported mesogenic layers.