T. Košutová1, Z. Krtouš1, J. Kousal1, O. Kylián1, L. Martínez2, Y. Huttel2, H. Biederman1, M. Dopita1

1) Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematica and Physics, Czech Republic
2) Instituto de Cienciade Materialesde Madrid (ICMM-CSIC), Madrid, Spain

In the presented work, we investigated thin films consisting of face-centered cubic metallic nanoparticles. First, copper, silver and gold nanoparticle layers were studied individually, subsequently, bilayers of these nanoparticles were deposited and analyzed. Studied nanoparticles were prepared by Haberland type gas aggregation cluster sources, combined with magnetron sputtering of single metallic targets.

We focus on the thermal evolution of the nanoparticles morphology and microstructure in the air atmosphere. Ex-situ measurements were performed by small-angle x-ray scattering method and scanning electron microscopy to obtain the size distribution, shape and also inert structure of nanoparticles in the case of copper nanoparticles wrapped in copper oxide shell. In-situ x-ray diffraction was employed to investigate the thermally-driven changes in phase composition, lattice parameters, sizes of crystallites, and evolution of microstructural defects present in crystalline phases up to 600 °C. The optical properties of the plasmonic nanoparticle layers were analyzed by ellipsometry.