Gold Nanostructures on Graphite

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles supported on a graphite substrate are prepared by thermal evaporation, and subsequently studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), temperature programmed desorption (TPD) of carbon monoxide and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).Increasing the amount of gold deposited leads to a shift of the desorption peak to higher temperatures, and the gold particles become larger.Depositing approximately the same amount of gold at different evaporation ratios does not seem to affect the desorption.Triangularly shaped gold particles appeared at higher evaporation rates.This is thought to be caused by diffusion effects dominating the formation of the particles.