A COMPARATIVE HIGH-RESOLUTION ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE STUDY OF AG CLUSTERS PRODUCED BY A SPUTTER-GAS AGGREGATION AND ION CLUSTER BEAM TECHNIQUE

Ag clusters were formed by a sputter-gas-aggregation process [H. Haber land et al.: J Vac. Sci. Technol. A 10 (1992) 32661 and the ionized cl uster beam (ICB) [T. Takagi: Ionized-Cluster Beam Deposition and Epita xy (Noyes, Park Ridge, 1988)] technique. The Ag clusters deposited on collodion-coated microgrids were investigated by high-resolution trans mission electron microscopy. The diameter of those clusters, d, ranges from 1 nm up to about 10 nm for specimens produced by the sputter-gas aggregation technique, depending on the sputter condition and the dep osition time. Comparable times of the ICB deposition lead to a broader distribution up to d almost-equal-to 20 nm, suggesting the formation of islands with extremely flat shapes. High percentages of crystalline particles obtained by both techniques are either single crystals or m ultiple twins with clear lattice images.