Morphological and structural analysis of nano-structured gold thin film on silicon by pulsed laser deposition technique

Structural and morphological investigations on optimized nano-structured gold thin film (under vacuum ∼10−3 Torr) are reported. The Au optimized thin film was deposited on 4 N polished and analytic grade p-type single crystal (111) Silicon wafer by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique, under a vacuum of about 10−3 Torr at room temperature. The space resolved dynamics of the plume is studied by analyzing CCD images of plume. Average size of deposited nanoparticles is along the preferred (111) orientation is ∼ 20 nm using PLD technique. The deposited film is non-uniform with particle size within the range of 6.19 nm–19.62 nm. There is decrease in the value of dislocation line density. XRD and SEM investigations support each other.