Morphology Study of small amounts of evaporated gold on polymers

For different fields of applications, the knowledge of the exact morphology of ultra thin metal layers deposited on polymers is of interest. In this work, gold metallization of polymers was carried out in high vacuum by evaporation at room temperature. The evaporation flux was measured by a quartz crystal microbalance. By dint of XPS measurements, it is shown that the condensation coefficient of gold onto the different polymers is far below unity. A detailed study of the gold deposit structure was accomplished by SEM and TEM measurements. The evolutions of various morphology parameters of the gold islands are shown as a function of the evaporated gold quantity, confirming a heterogeneous Volmer–Weber growth.