Determination of the static scaling exponent of self-affine interfaces by nonspecular x-ray scattering

Abstract

We discuss the conditions that have to be met in a nonspecular x-ray experiment to extract the static scaling behavior of a self-affine surface independently of a special height-height correlation function chosen to model the data. It is shown that this task requires a sufficiently large parallel momentum transfer of the scattering vector. In this respect, various scattering geometries are compared, and an analytical approximation to the structure factor on the relevant range of the scattering vector is proposed. The validity of the approximation is checked numerically.