Silver Films Deposited by Electron-Beam Evaporation for Application in Nanoplasmonics

Currently a wide interest has been shown to improving the optical properties of metal thin films for application in nanooptics and nanoplasmonics. One of the minimizing losses methods in plasmonics is usage of quasi singlecrystilline thin film instead polycrystalline thin films. This paper tested the problem of quasi singlecrystilline continuous silver thin films formation with a high aspect ratio of the crystallite size to the film thickness. First, we did the growth mechanisms analysis and chose a substrate for the growth of quasi singlecrystilline film. The article shows the experimental data and SEM images of deposited films. Then we classified three regions of growth depending on the evaporated material ratio and "film - substrate" energy system and found the main crystalline size correlations with the deposition rate and the substrate temperature. Finally, 200 nm thick continuous monocrystalline silver film with an aspect ratio of 7:1 and a surface roughness of about 1 nm was deposited.

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