Atomic force microscopy study of the growth mechanisms of nanostructured sputtered Au film on Si(111): Evolution with film thickness and annealing time

Nanostructured Au films were deposited on Si(111) by room-temperature sputtering. By the atomic force microscopy technique we studied the evolution of the Au film morphology as a function of the film thickness h and annealing time t at 873 K. By the study of the evolution of the mean vertical and horizontal sizes of the islands forming the film and of their fraction of covered area as a function of h from 1.7×1017 to 1.0×1018 Au/cm2 we identified four different growth stages such as: (1) 1.7×1017≤h≤3.0×1017 Au/cm2, nucleation of nanometric three-dimensional (3D) hemispherical Au clusters; (2) 3.0×1017<h≤5.2×1017 Au/cm2, lateral growth of the Au clusters; (3) 5.2×1017<h≤7.7×1017 Au/cm2, coalescence of the Au clusters; (4) 7.7×1017<h≤1.0×1018 Au/cm2, vertical growth of the coalesced Au clusters. The application of the dynamic scaling theory of growing interfaces allowed us to calculate the dynamic scaling exponent z=3.8±0.3, the dynamic growth exponent β=0.38±0.03, the roughness exponent α=1.4±0.1 and the Avrami exponent m=0.79±0.02. Finally, the study of the evolution of the mean Au clusters size as a function of annealing time at 873 K allowed us to identify the thermal-induced self-organization mechanism in a surface diffusion limited ripening of 3D structures and also the surface diffusion coefficient of Au on Si(111) at 873 K was estimated in (8.2×10−16)±(3×10−17) m2/s.