Influence of Oxygen on the Adherence of Gold Films to Oxide Substrates

Models which have been proposed for the mechanism of adhesion between deposited metal films and oxide surfaces correlate the adhesion to the chemical activity of the metal. It is shown that gold, which is usually thought to have little chemical interaction with oxygen, can be made to adhere strongly to fused silica if deposited in the presence of oxygen. The oxygen apparently affects the nucleation of the deposited film. Several deposition techniques are compared to determine the effect of ion bombardment of the surface on the resulting adhesion.