Morphological study of discontinuous and semicontinuous metal films

The morphology of thin metal films is investigated by computer experiment. In the initial stages of film growth, the theory of mathematical morphology provides convenient methods for the characterisation of spatial distribution of islands in these films by the radial distribution function and/or by the distribution of nearest-neighbours. In the paper, the range of validity of standard morphological methods is tested, and methods for the analysis of thicker metal films are suggested. It was found that the covariance function is useful even in cases when other simple morphological methods cannot be used.