Thermal instability of gold thin films

Data posted concern the results of study on the disintegration of gold thin film and the formation of nanoislands. To study the effect of silicon diffusion on processes of dewetting and the formation of gold nanostructures, thin metallic Au films were deposited on silicon substrates with and without the native oxide film. The disintegration process was measured in two ways: by analyzing SEM images of annealed samples, as well as during in situ measurements by LEEM and LEED.

Our microscopic and structural studies have shown various mechanisms of the disintegration of gold film on clean Si and Si with native oxide substrates. The disintegration of continuous film starts at a multiple grain junction, which was perfectly illustrated by LEEM. Thermal dewetting of the metallic thin films, deposited on both types of substrates, leads to the formation of nanoislands. However, the final shape and size of the islands strongly depends on the presence of native oxide on the silicon substrate. It was noticed that wetting of the deoxidized silicon substrate by gold is more preferable than in the case of the silicon oxide-covered substrate. Moreover, diffusion could be blocked by silicon oxide in the beginning phase of the disintegration of gold film. Additionally, an etching effect of the native silicon oxide by gold droplets was observed by LEED investigations and confirmed by XPS method.

A description of the results can be found in the file "readme.txt".