When a Surface Becomes a Network: SEM Reveals Hidden Scaling Laws and a Percolation-like Transition in Thin Films

Helena Cristina Vasconcelos; Telmo Eleutério; Maria Meirelles; Reşit Özmenteş

doi:10.3390/surfaces9010014

,

and

¹

Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Azores, 9500-321 Ponta Delgada, S. Miguel, Azores, Portugal

²

Laboratory of Instrumentation, Biomedical Engineering and Radiation Physics (LIBPhys, UNL), Department of Physics, NOVA School of Science and Technology, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal

³

Research Institute of Marine Sciences, University of the Azores (OKEANOS), 9901-862 Horta, Faial, Azores, Portugal

⁴

Vocational School of Health Services, Bitlis Eren University, 13100 Bitlis, Türkiye

Surfaces2026, 9(1), 14;https://doi.org/10.3390/surfaces9010014

This article belongs to the Special Issue Surface Engineering of Thin Films

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Abstract

The morphology of solid surfaces encodes fundamental information about the physical mechanisms that govern their formation. Here, we reinterpret scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs of oxide thin films as two-dimensional self-affine morphology fields (not height-metrology) and analyze them using a multiscale statistical-physics framework that integrates spectral, multifractal, geometric, and topological descriptors. Fourier-based power spectral density (PSD) provides the spectral slope

When a Surface Becomes a Network: SEM Reveals Hidden Scaling Laws and a Percolation-like Transition in Thin Films

Abstract

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