In present study, YSZ thin films were grown on the Alloy-600 and optical quarts substrates by e-beam deposition. By changing deposition time and e-beam gun power (from 0.48 to 1.2 kW) the growth mechanism of YSZ thin films were investigated. YSZ thin film structure and surface morphology were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It was found that electron gun power and substrate temperature has influence influencing the thin film deposition mechanism. The structure of deposited YSZ thin films on the optical quartz is tetragonal (101). Experimental results show that surface roughness of thin films pass through the minimum with the change in substrate temperature in interval from 200^oC to 600^oC and e-beam gun power in interval from 0.75kW to 1.05kW. The aim of this work is to explain and analyze this non-monotonous behavior of surface roughness by proposed kinetic model. The model is based on rate equations and includes processes of surface diffusion of adatoms, nucleation, growth and coalescence of islands in the case of thin films growth in Volmer-Weber mode. It is shown by modeling that non-monotonous dependence of surface roughness on the factors influencing energy of adatoms (e.g. temperature, assisted beam irradiation, accelerating voltage) occurs as a result of interplay between diffusion length of adatoms and size of islands, because both parameters depend on energy of adatoms. Variation of island size and diffusion length results in atomic jumps from islands forming rougher or smoother surface. The functions of surface roughness, island size, island density on diffusion length of adatoms and on other parameters are calculated and analyzed in this work.

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1. Investigation of non-monotonous dependencies of the surface roughness on the thin film deposition parameters