Synthesis and characterization of elemental silver clusters on silver (I, II, III) oxide clathrate films, Ag0/Ag7O8H(CO3), by the chemical bath deposition technique

Abstract

Chemical bath deposition technique at room temperature proved to be efficient in synthetizing elemental silver clusters on Silver (I, II, III) oxide clathrate films, Ag0/Ag708HCO3.The set of samples was prepared for 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes.All films exhibited a yellowish-brown color and presented good adherence to the corning glass substrate.The direct band gaps values were 3.77 to 3.82 eV.A cubic crystallographic structure was determined with the usage of TEM; while SEM was used for the observation of their morphology which showed a very homogenous flat background with a distribution of metallic silver clusters with irregular shape was growing.