Scaling behavior of polished (1 1 0) single-crystal nickel surfaces

The kinetic surface roughening of the polished (1 1 0) plane of a single-crystal nickel is investigated using atomic force microscopy. The polished (1 1 0) surfaces exhibit the scaling behavior characterized by the roughness exponent α=0.83±0.05, the growth exponent β=0.83±0.07 and the skewness=−0.52±0.06, whose values are compared with the theoretical values in statistical growth models in deposition. These characteristics indicate that the scaling behavior of the polished nickel surfaces can be related to a statistical growth model of nonlinear diffusion dynamics in deposition.