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Nanostructured films obtained by the assembling of preformed atomic clustersare of strategic importance for a wide variety of applications. The depositionof clusters produced in the gas phase onto a substrate offers the possibilityto control and engineer the structural and functional properties of thecluster-assembled films. To date the microscopic mechanisms underlying thegrowth and structuring of cluster-assembled films are poorly understood, and inparticular the transition from the sub-monolayer to the thin film regime isexperimentally unexplored. Here we report the systematic characterization byAtomic Force Microscopy of the evolution of the structural properties ofcluster-assembled films deposited by Supersonic Cluster Beam Deposition. As aparadigm of nanostructured systems, we have focused our attention oncluster-assembled zirconia films, investigating the influence of the buildingblocks dimensions on the growth mechanisms and on the roughening of the thinfilms, following the growth process from the early stages of the sub-monolayerto the thin film regime. Our results demonstrate that the growth dynamics inthe sub-monolayer regime determines different morphological properties of thecluster-assembled thin film. The evolution of roughness with the number ofdeposited clusters reproduces exactly the growth exponent of the ballisticdeposition in the 2+1 model, from the sub-monolayer to the thin film regime.

Growth mechanism of cluster-assembled surfaces: from sub-monolayer to thin film regime