Atomic force microscopy study of the growth mechanisms of nanostructured sputtered Au film on Si(111): Evolution with film thickness and annealing time

Abstract

Nanostructured Au films were deposited on Si(111) by room-temperature sputtering. By the atomic force microscopy technique we studied the evolution of the Au film morphology as a function of the film thickness h and annealing time t at 873 K. By the study of the evolution of the mean vertical and horizontal sizes of the islands forming the film and of their fraction of covered area as a function of h from 1.7× 1017 to 1.0× 1018 Au/ cm2 we identified four different growth stages such as: (1) 1.7× 1017 ≤ h≤3.0 × 1017 Au/ cm 2, nucleation of nanometric three-dimensional (3D) hemispherical Au clusters; (2) 3.0 × 1017