K Grytsenko, V Lozovski, G Strilchuk, S Schrader – Nanomaterials, 2012
Nanocomposite films consisting of gold inclusions in the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) matrix were obtained by thermal vacuum deposition. Annealing of the obtained films with different temperatures was used to measure varying of film morphologies. The dependence of optical properties of the films on their morphology was studied. It was established that absorption and profile of the nanocomposite film obtained by thermal vacuum deposition can be changed with annealing owing to the fact that different annealing temperatures lead to different average particle sizes. A method to calculate the optical properties of nanocomposite thin films with inclusions of different sizes was proposed. Thus, comparison of experimental optical spectra with the spectra obtained during the simulation enables estimating average sizes of inclusions. The calculations give the possibility of understanding morphological changes in the structures… Our films were made by thermal vacuum deposition. Films were deposited by using UVN-74 (USSR) industrial installation equipped with Pfeiffer vacuum pressure meter, Sigma quartz thickness monitor and optical spectrometer StellarNet (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Setup of the deposition installation: (1) vacuum chamber; (2) substrates; (3) system and (4) motor for substrate rotation; (5) shutter; (6) evaporator-activator for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE); (7) evaporator for Au; (8) RF electrodes; (9) quartz crystals of Sigma card; (10) fibres; (11,15–17) controllers of quartz monitors, motor, PTFE and Au evaporators; (12) RF generator; (13) computer; (14) optical spectrometer StellarNet.
Figure 3. Optical transmission spectra of the Au + PTFE films recorded during the annealing. Au concentration is increased from 1 to 3 (from about 5 to 21 vol %).
