Fabrication of Cu nanoclusters and their use for production of Cu/plasma polymer nanocomposite thin films

Abstract Deposition of Cu nanoclusters produced by compact gas aggregation nanocluster source without size filtration is investigated. The main emphasis is given to the determination of influence of operating conditions (pressure in the aggregation and deposition chambers, magnetron current) on deposition rate of Cu nanoclusters as well as on the evaluation of their size distribution and chemical structure. Subsequently, possibility to employ this nanocluster source for fabrication of Cu nanoclusters/plasma polymer multilayer nanocomposites was tested. It is shown that by step-by-step deposition of layers of Cu nanoclusters and plasma polymer it is possible to control not only amount of Cu nanoclusters incorporated into plasma polymer, but also roughness, wettability and optical properties of resulting coatings without affecting their surface chemical composition.