Rayleigh-instability-driven dewetting of thin Au and Ag films on indium-tin-oxide surface under nanosecond laser irradiations

Author

Ruffino, Francesco ; Carria, Egidio ; Kimiagar, Salimeh ; Crupi, Isodiana ; Grimaldi, M.G.

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Fis. ed Astron., Univ. di Catania, Catania, Italy

Volume

8

Issue

3

fYear

2013

fDate

3/1/2013 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

127

Lastpage

130

Abstract

Investigations have been carried out on laser-beam-induced nanoparticle (NP) formation in thin (5 nm) Au and Ag films on indium-tin-oxide substrate. After the irradiation the films were observed to break-up into NPs through a dewetting mechanism. This mechanism was investigated as a Rayleigh-instability-driven process. In fact, for each used laser fluence, the resulting Au and Ag NPs´ mean size and surface-to-surface mean distance were quantified and correlated between them in the framework of the Rayleigh-instability theory showing an excellent agreement.

Keywords

gold; laser beam effects; metallic thin films; nanofabrication; nanoparticles; silver; Ag; Ag nanoparticle mean size; Au; Au nanoparticle mean size; ITO; Rayleigh-instability theory framework; Rayleigh-instability-driven dewetting; Rayleigh-instability-driven process; dewetting mechanism; indium-tin-oxide substrate; indium-tin-oxide surface; laser fluence; laser-beam-induced nanoparticle formation; nanosecond laser irradiations; size 5 nm; surface-to-surface mean distance; thin Ag film; thin Au film;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Micro & Nano Letters, IET

Publisher

iet

ISSN

1750-0443

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/mnl.2012.0870

Filename

6544954