A Mechanism to Account for Observed Morphological Changes in Discontinuous Gold Films following Deposition

Abstract

Experimental results on the behavior of discontinuous metal films on amorphous substrates of carbon and silicon monoxide are extended and reviewed. These results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms to account for the experimental behavior. The mechanism of island motion with subsequent coalescence is selected, for it agrees best with the observed results. This mechanism is used as a basis for a calculation in which the behavior of the islands is treated by statistical methods. Solutions predict the time and temperature dependence for the mean radius and dispersion of the island distribution. Comparison to experiment is favorable and yields a quantity which corresponds to the binding energy of gold islands to carbon or to silicon monoxide substrates. For the gold‐carbon case, the binding energy is 1.29±0.04 eV, while the gold‐silicon monoxide case yields 1.52±0.23 eV.