Temperature‐dependent morphology and characteristic parameters of annealed gold nanolayers

Abstract

Gold nanostructures were formed when Au nanolayers were deposited on native‐oxide‐covered Si substrates and annealed. To analyze the annealing temperature dependent surface morphology, we calculated the height–height correlation function and the power spectrum density function from the atomic force microscopy image data. When the annealing temperature for 20 nm thick Au layer increased from 500 to 700 °C, the interface width w and the lateral correlation length ξ of the surface increased obviously from 4.8 to 44.0 nm and from 70.5 to 180.9 nm, respectively. On the other hand, the roughness exponent α was a relatively universal parameter (∼0.87). While the morphology of the surfaces was mainly self‐affine, suggesting that the random surface diffusion plays a dominant role in the kinetic roughening process of such an annealed system, the results of the morphological analysis also imply that the self‐affine surface begins to become mounded for higher annealing temperatures.

Improved control on the morphology and LSPR properties of plasmonic Pt NPs through enhanced solid state dewetting by using a sacrificial indium layer

“…24 The dewetting kinetics can be controlled by altering the growth parameters such as temperature, pressure, annealing duration and lm thickness as well as the intrinsic properties of lms and substrates such as diffusivity, surface energy, interface energy and crystal structures. [24][25][26] On top of these parameters, in this work, the overall dewetting process of Pt lm on sapphire has been readily altered or enhanced by the introduction of In layer. The In was chosen as an intermediate layer between Pt lm and sapphire because of its low surface energy, high surface diffusivity as well as low sublimation temperature.…”