Surface Modification of a Metal Oxide Thin Film with Dewetted Au Nanoparticles

The purpose of this work is to develop a technology for the formation of the surface of transition metal oxides by plasmonic activators. The technology consisting of magnetron sputtering of an oxide film, thermal evaporation of noble metal nanoparticles and dewetting is briefly considered. The materials under study were gold layers of various thicknesses, nickel and titanium oxides. The paper demonstrates the main regularities of dewetting of plasmonic gold nanoparticles on the surfaces of nickel and titanium oxides and shows that one of the key parameters is the wetting angle. This conclusion makes it possible to expand the possibilities of controlling the size of nanoparticles during dehydration by choosing the substrate material. The formed materials can be used as active media of various optoelectronic devices.