  We have carried out scanning tunneling microscopy experiments under ultrahigh
vacuum condition to study the morphology of ultrathin Ge films eposited on
pristine Si(100) and ion-irradiated Si(100) self-affine fractal surfaces. The
pristine and the ion-irradiated Si(100) surface have roughness exponents of
alpha=0.19+/-0.05 and alpha=0.82+/-0.04 respectively. These measurements were
carried out on two halves of the same sample where only one half was
ion-irradiated. Following deposition of a thin film of Ge (~6 A) the roughness
exponents change to 0.11+/-0.04 and 0.99+/-0.06, respectively. Upon Ge
deposition, while the roughness increases by more than an order of magnitude on
the pristine surface, a smoothing is observed for the ion-irradiated surface.
For the ion-irradiated surface the correlation length xi increases from 32 nm
to 137 nm upon Ge deposition. Ge grows on Si surfaces in the Stranski-Krastanov
or layer-plus-island mode where islands grow on a wetting layer of about three
atomic layers. On the pristine surface the islands are predominantly of square
or rectangular shape, while on the ion-irradiated surface the islands are
nearly diamond shaped. Changes of adsorption behaviour of deposited atoms
depending on the roughness exponent (or the fractal dimension) of the substrate
surface are discussed.
