A study of growth and thermal dewetting behavior of ultra-thin gold films using transmission electron microscopy

The growth and solid-state dewetting behavior of Au thin films (0.7 to 8.4 nm) deposited on the formvar film (substrate) by sputtering technique have been studied using transmission electron microscopy. The size and number density of the Au nanoparticles (NPs) change with an increase in the film thickness (0.7 to 2.8 nm). Nearly spherical Au NPs are obtained for <3 nm thickness films whereas percolated nanostructures are observed for ≥3 nm thickness films as a consequence of the interfacial interaction of Au and formvar film. The covered area fraction (CAF) increases from ∼13 to 75 % with the change in film thickness from 0.7 to 8.4 nm. In-situ annealing of ≤3 nm film produces comparatively bigger size and better sphericity Au NPs along with their narrow distributions, whereas just percolated film produces broad distribution in size having spherical as well as elongated Au NPs. The films with thickness ≤3 nm show excellent thermal stability. The films having thickness >6 nm show capability to be used as an irreversible temperature sensor with a sensitivity of ∼0.1 CAF/°C. It is observed that annealing affects the crystallinity of the Au grains in the films. The electron diffraction measurement also shows annealing induced morphological evolution in the percolated Au thin films (≥3 nm) during solid-state dewetting and recrystallization of the grains.