Association Between Gold Grain Orientation and Its Periodic Steps Formed at the Gold/Substrate Interface

Abstract

Nanoscale step structures have attracted recent interest owing to their importance in both fundamental and applied research, for example in adsorption, in catalysis, and in directing nanowire growth. Here, we used a template-stripping method to obtain vicinal-like surface structures on grains of polycrystalline gold and investigated the effect of annealing temperature on the formation of these surfaces. Our results uncovered a correlation between the grain orientation angle (GOA) and the step periodicity and crystallographic direction on identical grains. The GOA was measured by determining the electron backscatter diffraction with respect to the sample's normal direction. Using scanning tunneling microscopy to examine identical grains, we found that their step periodicity decreases with increasing GOA.These results provide further understanding of the formation of periodically atomic gold steps at the gold/substrate interface, and thus might have promising potential for the directing growth of nanowires in microelectronics.

Water-Immersion Laser-Scanning Annealing for Improving Polycrystalline Au Films

“…When the Rayleigh instability occurs, the surface tension of the liquid portion could reshape the morphology of the nanostructure . Therefore, we use room-temperature water, instead of air, as the surrounding medium to provide a high-heat-capacity thermal reservoir, which can regulate the heating to avoid a local solid-state dewetting or Rayleigh instability in the Au film. , This mild annealing process can promote the local grain growth and avoid the local Rayleigh instability. In addition, the bulges (blisters), solid-state dewetting, or pinholes (voids) in a deposited thin film during annealing, usually produced in conventional thermal annealing, must be avoided.…”

“… 24 − 26 However, several types of defects induced by the thermal annealing are usually observed, such as the bulges (blisters), solid state dewetting, and pinholes (voids). 35 − 40 These induced defects are also related to the quality of the adhesion layer, the delamination of film, the local overheating, and Rayleigh instability. 34 − 40 The preservation of the film integrity after the annealing is essential for the following fabrication of nanostructures via FIB milling.…”

“…For example, the long-range surface plasmon polariton (LRSPP) along an IMI layered structure is commonly applied for the waveguides or biosensors, particularly in the NIR regime . Another application of an IMI sensor is for the measurement of the change of the medium’s refractive index by detecting the shift of the SPR dip in the total internal reflection spectrum. − In general, a postprocess of annealing for a deposited Au film can improve the sensitivity of these SPR sensors. − However, several types of defects induced by the thermal annealing are usually observed, such as the bulges (blisters), solid state dewetting, and pinholes (voids). − These induced defects are also related to the quality of the adhesion layer, the delamination of film, the local overheating, and Rayleigh instability. − The preservation of the film integrity after the annealing is essential for the following fabrication of nanostructures via FIB milling.…”

Ultraclean Interface of Metal Chalcogenides with Metal through Confined Interfacial Chalcogenization

“…This thermal annealing effect of grain growth and fractional orientation has been previously reported. [36,37] We exploited TEM precession electron diffraction (PED) to investigate the epitaxial correlation of the TMD layer with crystal orientations of Au and Mo. Figure 4c shows the Au/MoSe 2 /Mo region that includes three Au grains.…”

Multi-component self-assembled molecular-electronic films: towards new high-performance thermoelectric systems

“…For all Au TS samples, we observed polycrystalline lms comprising regions of widely differing single-orientation domain sizes consistent with previous studies of the nature of Au TS substrates. [59][60][61] Only Au TS samples with RMS roughness below 0.2 nm were used for SAM growth. The height distributions of Au/3 and Au/3/P, and Au/4 and Au/4/P were obtained from nano-scratching, as shown in Fig.…”