A STUDY OF SURFACE-DIFFUSION ON GOLD WITH AN ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPE

Surface self-diffusion on a polycrystalline gold surface has been meas ured in the temperature range from 300 K up to 773 K using an atomic f orce microscope (AFM). The so called single surface scratch method was used for this study. A technique was developed to produce reproducibl e surface scratches with the AFM. The analysis of these scratches was made by AFM, too. So, with these methods the activation energy (0.4 eV ) of the surface diffusion process was deduced by time and temperature dependent scratch profile measurements.