Preparation of thin silver films on mica studied by XRD and AFM

Thin silver films (50–300 nm) were grown on muscovite mica at different substrate temperatures (480–600 K). The films were studied by XRD showing two different orientations. The single crystalline islands are preferentially oriented in [111] direction with a smaller quantity in [100] direction, which is also reflected by the morphology (determined by AFM) and by the oxygen content on the surface (detected by XPS). Both orientations could be traced back to two differently shaped islands: hexagonal-like flat particles and oval shaped higher ones. The orientation as well as the proportion between both species is strongly dependent on the temperature and the film thickness. In this way the conditions were optimized for preparing well-oriented thin films with large flat areas. Depending on the preparation of the films different oxygen contents were analyzed by XPS. Higher oxygen contents were found for samples with significant contributions of (100) planes.