In electroless deposition, a chemical reducing agent is used to deposit a metal film from a solution of its ions. Electroless Cu films deposited with HCHO as the reducing agent exhibit anomalous scaling, with the root-mean-square interface width w varying as $t^{{\beta }_{\mathrm{loc}}}$ at short length scales. Changing the HCHO concentration changes the growth rate, but not the scaling exponents other than ${\beta }_{\mathrm{loc}}.$ The nonchanging exponents were measured as $H=0.74\mathrm{}\pm 0.03$ and $\beta =0.28\mathrm{}\pm 0.03,$ where H is the Hurst exponent, and w varies as $t^{\beta +{\beta }_{\mathrm{loc}}}$ at long length scales. Our results reveal similarities with the dynamic scaling of conventional electrodeposited films.

• Received 21 November 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.67.081401