Evaluation of the Mechanism of the Gold Cluster Growth during Heating of the Composite Gold-Polytetrafluoroethylene Thin Film.docVIP

Nanomaterials 2012, 2, 366-378; doi:10.3390/nano2040366 OPEN ACCESS nanomaterials ISSN 2079-4991 /journal/nanomaterials Article Evaluation of the Mechanism of the Gold Cluster Growth during Heating of the Composite Gold-Polytetrafluoroethylene Thin Film Konstantin Grytsenko 1, Valeri Lozovski 1,2, Galyna Strilchuk 1,2,* and Sigurd Schrader 3 1 Institute of Semiconductor Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Nauki ave. 41, Kyiv 03028, Ukraine; E-Mails: d.grytsenko@ (K.G.); v.lozovsk@ (V.L.) 2 Institute of High Technologies, National T.Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Volodymyrska str. 64, Kyiv 01001, Ukraine 3 University of Applied Sciences, Wildau, Bahnhofstrasse 15745, Germany; E-Mail: sigurd.schrader@th-wildau.de * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: gstrilchuk@; Tel.: +38-044-525-55-30; Fax: +38-044-525-55-30. Received: 17 October 2012 / Accepted: 26 October 2012 / Published: 7 November 2012 Abstract: 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. Keywords: nanocompo