MORPHOLOGY AND ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY OF AuCu NANOFILM ALLOYS

Abstract

Au / Cu thin films (33–320 nm thickness) were deposited by thermal evaporation on p-type silicon (100) substrates. Two groups of these bimaterial films were alloyed into a vacuum oven by diffusion. The first group was prepared with 24% Au atomic concentration (i.e. 33, 96, 158, 224, and 320 nm as AuCu total thickness). The second group was prepared changing the Au atomic concentration from 10% to 90%, with 10% Au steps and similar total thickness (100 nm). Prepared alloys were characterized with atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and collinear four-probe techniques in order to obtain their morphology, stoichiometry, crystalline structure, and electrical resistivity, respectively. Particularly, electrical resistivity presented abrupt changes with the atomic concentration and the annealing temperature with important differences as compared with pure Au and Cu thin films.