Co nanocrystals in amorphous multilayers – a structure study

Abstract

The structure of magnetron‐sputtered Co/SiO2 multilayers has been investigated using grazing‐incidence small‐angle X‐ray scattering, X‐ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and ion scattering techniques. A theoretical description of diffuse X‐ray scattering from three‐dimensional self‐assembled ensembles of nanoparticles is also presented. The data revealed that Co‐rich nanoparticles self‐organize in a three‐dimensional lattice and a dependence of the lattice parameters as well as the mean particle size on the nominal layer thickness was observed. Originally amorphous Co‐rich layers crystallize readily during deposition, creating both pure Co and Co oxide particles. The results presented are important for controlled production and reliable characterization of metallic nanoparticles in solid amorphous matrices, aiming to obtain a well ordered monodisperse ensemble of nanoparticles.

Synthesis of tunable plasmonic metal-ceramic nanocomposite thin films by temporally modulated sputtered fluxes

“…These values are in good agreement with the results obtained by XRR (Table I) when taking the considerable layer roughness into account. Moreover, weak ordering on the nearest neighbor island level can be evidenced in the TEM data for the sample with 5 nm AlOxNy in the stack (Fig 3(c)), which is in agreement with data reported in the literature for a number of metal-dielectric nanocomposite systems 16,28,48,49 .…”

“…For instance, when the noble metal and dielectric material film forming species are deposited simultaneously, the low mutual solubility leads to precipitation of randomly dispersed metal nanoparticles with a relatively broad size distribution 22,23 . If instead, the vapor species forming the noble metal and dielectric matrix are deposited in an alternating fashion, a self-organized microstructure is formed which is characterized by its out-of-plane periodicity, while individual 3D island layers are weakly correlated with each other 9,16,[24][25][26][27][28][29] . By changing the process conditions (e.g., growth temperature and temporal profile of the deposition fluxes) the size of 3D islands and the distance between 3D island layers can be varied to tune out-of-plane and in-plane separation between the metal nanoparticles.…”

Properties of SiC and Si3N4 Thin Films Containing Self-Assembled Gold Nanoparticles

“…The preparation and conditioning of nanostructures followed by their insertion in matrices depends on the dimensionality of functional material [28,29]. Depending on the application, nanostructures can exist as zero-dimensional quantum dots (QDs) [30,31], onedimensional nanofibers/nanotubes/nanorods [32,33], two-dimensional layered semiconductors/insulators, and three-dimensional complex structures [19,34].…”

Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Al+MoO3 and Au+MoO3 Thin Films Prepared by Magnetron Codeposition

“…An important part of the development and research of new functional materials is related to the methods of preparation and conditioning of nanostructures in matrices [ 21 , 22 ]. The creation of spatially ordered nanoparticle (NP) lattices in the matrix material is not a necessary consequence of the magnetron deposition.…”