Polycrystalline foils, etching

Some deposits have been formed on Au single crystals. However, single crystals are too expensive to use in forming larger deposits, and have to be recycled. A number of disposable substrates have been investigated, so that the substrates do not have to be recycled, and the deposits can be kept around. The first deposits were made on cold-rolled gold foil, which proved too expensive, and polycrystalline after etching. Au vapor deposited on Si(lOO) at room temperature was used extensively, as the films were more reproducible and resembled Au mirrors. On the nanometer scale, however, the films consisted of 40 nm hemispheres (Fig. 5a). 

Figure 3. Surface preparation of the polycrystalline iron foil as received, with damage from cold work (a), ion etched, to remove 2 fan of metal (b) after annealing for 2 hat 500°C to remove etch structure (c), and development of step structure after further annealing for 3 hat 600°C (d).

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