Influence of Amorphous Zinc Oxide on Structural Changes in a Gold Nanolayer after Annealing

Abstract

This work was aimed at studying the influence of an amorphous zinc oxide nanolayer of the thickness close to 5 nm on the results of SPR-measurements of the air refraction index and to determine structural changes in the inner gold nanolayer before and after annealing. We compared the properties of the samples after annealing in the cases of only gold nanolayer in its as-deposited state on the substrate and with the upper amorphous zinc oxide nanolayer. The research results showed that during the simultaneous formation of zinc oxide using sol-gel technology on gold nanofilms and annealing at 500 °C for 30 minutes, it was determined that zinc oxide is formed into an amorphous film with a thickness of 5 nm and effectively protects gold from oxidation, provides a reduction in the level of microdeformations from 1.51 to 0.005. The surface roughness of this film is 5 A

Keywords: surface plasmon resonance, sol-gel technology, Amorphous zinc oxide, nanogold film, Thermal annealing