X-Ray diffraction of the metallic nanostructures

Metallic nanostructures (gold and silver) were manufactured as a thermal annealing of gold or silver thin film. Gold films with thickness of 2.8 nm were deposited on a silicon substrates using a table-top dc magnetron sputtering coater (EM SCD 500, Leica), equipped with quartz microbalance for in-situ thickness measurements. Films were deposited from high purity (99.99%) gold or silver targets in pure Argon plasma. Thermal treatment of metallic thin film resulted in forming spherical isolated islands. XRD investigations (X'Pert diffractometer, using CuKα radiation in a range of 10°–70° of 2θ) showed an epitaxial growth of the structures. The crystallographic structure of metallic nanostructures repeat structure of silicon substrate.