Simultaneous real-time x-ray diffraction spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, and sheet resistance measurements to study thin film growth kinetics by Kissinger plots

When the Kissinger method is used to investigate thin film growth kinetics, activation energies obtained are often significantly higher than those of Arrhenius plots based on isothermal studies. The reason for the higher activation energies is related to the sensitivity of the Kissinger analysis to nucleation effects. In fact, this often undesirable effect opens the possibility of studying nucleation barriers in a semiquantitative way. Furthermore, we show that these nucleation effects can be filtered out by a more careful application of the Kissinger method, and activation energies that are consistent with Arrhenius plots are then obtained.