Silver electrodeposition on nanostructured gold: from nanodots to nanoripples

P.C. DOS SANTOS CLARO; M. FONTICELLI; G. BENÍTEZ; O. AZZARONI; P. L. SCHILARDI; N.B. LUQUE; E. LEIVA; R.C. SALVAREZZA

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing Limited

Año: 2006 vol. 17 p. 3428 - 3435

0957-4484

Silver nanodots and nanoripples have been grown on nanocavity-patterned polycrystalline Au templates by controlled electrodeposition. The initial step is the growth of a first continuous Ag monolayer followed by preferential deposition at nanocavities. The Ag-coated nanocavities act as preferred sites forinstantaneous nucleation and growth of the three-dimensional metallic centres. By controlling the amount of deposited Ag, dots of∼50 nm average size and∼4nmaverageheight can be grown with spatial and size distributions dictated by the template. The dots are in a metastable state. Further Ag deposition drives the dot surface structure to nanoripple formation. Results show that electrodeposition on nanopatterned electrodes can be used to prepare a high density of nanostructures with a narrow size distribution and spatial order.