Energy-controlled depositions of size-selected silver nanoparticles on HOPG substrates

Silver monomer (Ag+1) or heptamer (Ag+7) ions were deposited on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrates at various, well-controlled collision energies. The total amount of silver (Ag) atoms remaining on the substrates after the collision was examined by measuring the Ag 3d5/2 photoelectron intensities. The collision energy dependence of the number of deposited Ag atoms revealed that there exist, for both species, three well-defined energy regions, for which soft landing, rebounding, or implantation is a dominant process. It was found that the collision energy dependence for Ag7 is well scaled to that for Ag1 by the factor 1/72/3 rather than 1/7, reflecting the compactness of Ag7.