The electrical properties of ultrathin gold films during and after their growth on glass

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Abstract
The variation in the film conduction during vapour deposition in UHV reflects the different growth stages: discontinuous structure; formation of stable metallic paths; and metallic continuous structure. If the deposition is stopped with RSquare Operator 1 M Omega the resulting film is discontinuous with a temperature-dependent conduction activation energy varying between 2 and 70 MeV, and a surface coverage f of typically 50%. When the resistance has decreased to less than 1 M Omega Square Operator -1 the film exhibits metallic conductance with f>or=75%. The resistance change in the discontinuous stage has been explained by a model where the applied field stretches the particles causing a decrease in the tunnelling length and making the films metallic continuous at an average thickness of 53+or-13 AA.