Formation of isolated islands by size-selected copper nanocluster deposition

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the formation of stable, monodispersed copper nanocluster islands on a carbon substrate using soft-landing deposition, preserving cluster size and shape.

Contribution

It introduces a method for depositing size-selected copper nanoclusters as isolated islands with minimal diffusion, using magnetron-based gas aggregation and QMF filtering.

Findings

Formation of stable, monodispersed copper islands.

Low diffusion of islands observed via TEM.

Effective size selection of copper clusters (~3 nm).

Abstract

Deposition of size-selected metal nanoclusters on a substrate with very low kinetic energy helps to keep the clusters intact with respect to their shape and size as compared to clusters in ight condition. Here we report formation of isolated monodispersed islands of copper of desired size on carbon film by deposition of size selected copper clusters (~ 3 nm) in soft-landing method. Copper clusters were produced by a magnetron based gas aggregation type source equipped with a quardrupole mass filter (QMF) to select size of clusters before landing. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) study shows that diffusion of islands is very low.