Quantitative Analysis of Gold Nano-aggregates by Combining Electron and Probe Microscopy Techniques

The structural and functional properties of nanostructured systems fabricated by the bottom-up assembling of clusters and nanoparticles depend upon the size and shape distribution of the building blocks. Moreover, it is well known that the size and the shape of nano-aggregates can influence toxicity or biological responses. Consequently, analytical techniques able to characterize nano-aggregates size distribution and shape are very important technological tools. This paper is the first step in the development of a quantitative approach combining electron and probe microscopy techniques for measuring the heights and lateral dimensions of primeval incident clusters and nano-aggregates on the substrate. In particular, we have analyzed samples of gold clusters deposited by a supersonic beam on silicon substrates for different deposition time in order to describe the first stage of growth of gold cluster-assembled thin film.