Ultrasmooth gold thin films by self-limiting galvanic displacement on silicon

Galvanic displacement (GD), a type of electroless deposition, has been used to obtain ultrasmooth gold thin films on silicon <111>. The novel aspect of the method presented herein is the absence of fluoride ions in the liquid phase, and its principal advantage when compared to previous efforts is that the process is inherently self-limiting. The self-limiting factor is due to the fact that in the absence of fluorinated species, no silicon oxide is removed during the process. Thus, the maximum gold film thickness is achieved when elemental silicon is no longer available once the surface is oxidized completely during the galvanic displacement process. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy has been used as a tool for thickness measurement, using the gold to silicon ratio as an analytical signal. Three gold plating solutions with different concentrations of KAuCl₄ (2, 0.2, and 0.02 mM) have been used to obtain information about the formation rate of the gold film. This XPS analysis demonstrates the formation of gold films to a maximum thickness of ∼3.5 Å. Atomic force microscopy is used to confirm surface smoothness, suggesting that the monolayer growth does not follow the Volmer-Weber growth mode, in contrast to the GD process from aqueous conditions with fluorinated species.