It is essential to study the thermal dewetting behavior of as-deposited nano-films for large scale and high-throughput fabrication. We report here on the nucleation of Au nanostructures onto titanium dioxide (TiOx) thin films surfaces, which occurred in consecutive steps. First, TiOx thin films were grown on quartz substrates reactively by e-beam evaporator and then thermally annealed at different temperatures, starting from 300°C to 900°C. Subsequently, a nano-film of Au was deposited on the top of these TiOx surfaces. The stacked Au / TiOx samples were post-annealed using muffle furnace at a temperature of 600°C for 1 h, to study the thermal dewetting properties and the controlled growth of the different TiOx morphologies on the formation of Au nanoparticles (NP) and their plasmonic response. Such dual-structures were characterized accordingly to probe their topological, morphological, structural, and optical properties, by means of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscopy, and ultra-violet–visible–near infrared characterization techniques. The thermal dewetting properties were found to improve at high temperatures (>500 ° C), where the Au NP size distribution was found to follow a Gaussian pattern centered around 30 nm. The average surface roughness also increased significantly with respect to the TiOx dewetting temperature, which is mainly attributed to the porosity of the films. Finally, the absorption peak for Au nanostructures has shown a localized surface plasmon resonance close to 520 nm, along with a broad shoulder peak with a strong tail thereby reflecting the wide distribution of the formed Au NP sizes.

中文翻译：

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通过固态热去湿法在 TiOx 薄膜表面图案化等离子体 Au 纳米粒子

研究沉积纳米薄膜的热去湿行为对于大规模和高通量制造至关重要。我们在此报告 Au 纳米结构在二氧化钛 (TiOx) 薄膜表面上的成核，这是在连续步骤中发生的。首先，通过电子束蒸发器在石英基板上反应生长 TiOx 薄膜，然后在 300°C 至 900°C 的不同温度下进行热退火。随后，Au 纳米薄膜沉积在这些 TiOx 表面的顶部。堆叠的 Au / TiOx 样品使用马弗炉在 600°C 的温度下进行后退火 1 小时，以研究热去湿特性和不同 TiOx 形态对 Au 纳米颗粒 (NP) 及其形成的控制生长等离子体反应。通过 X 射线光电子能谱、扫描电子显微镜、原子力显微镜和紫外-可见-近红外表征技术，对这种双结构进行了相应的表征，以探测它们的拓扑、形态、结构和光学性质。发现热去湿特性在高温（> 500°C）下得到改善，其中发现 Au NP 尺寸分布遵循以 30 nm 为中心的高斯模式。相对于 TiOx 去湿温度，平均表面粗糙度也显着增加，这主要归因于薄膜的孔隙率。最后，Au 纳米结构的吸收峰显示出接近 520 nm 的局域表面等离子体共振，