Ntegra atomic force microscope

Optical properties of SSFs were characterized using UV–vis–NIR Perkin Elmer Lambda 900 spectrometer. Transmittance was measured using a standard detector, while reflectance was measured with an integrating sphere module. Absorption was calculated assuming the sum of transmittance, reflectance, and absorption is 100%. The morphology of the fabricated structures was measured using a Quanta 3D FEG Dual Beam scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an atomic force microscope (AFM). The SEM images of SSFs were converted to black and white and metal coverage was calculated. The AFM maps were collected using an NTEGRA atomic force microscope from NT-MDT company. The surface topography measurements were made in semi-contact mode. We used HA_NC ETALON (NT-MDT) probe with 140 kHz ± 10% resonant frequency, force constant of 3.5 N/m ± 20% and standard tip curvature radius less than 10 nm. The thickness of SSFs was measured on the edge (step) formed through removing of a part of the silver film from the substrate (using a blade).

Raman spectroscopy analyzes were carried out on powders and films by a LabRAM Visible Raman micro-spectrometer (Horiba Jobin-Yvon, Kyoto, Japan), with a He-Ne laser (λ = 632.8 nm) and a network of 600 t mm⁻¹. The device was equipped with a confocal microscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) with a ×100 magnification lens. Spectral resolution was 1.1 cm⁻¹ per pixel. The data were acquired and processed with NGSLabSpec (version 5.45.09).
Time of flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS) spectra were obtained on films using a TOF SIMS5 (IONTOF GmbH, Münster, Germany) comprising a pulsed ion source (Bi³⁺) with a current of 0.35 pA and with charge compensation. Both positive and negative secondary ion spectra were collected for each sample with a range of m/z = 0–200 Da and accumulated from 50 scans. Three spectra were recorded for each sample on 3 different areas of 500 µm × 500 µm with 128 × 128 pixels each.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) analyzes were carried out on films by a NTEGRA atomic force microscope (NT-MDT, Moscow, Russia), under air, with a semi-contact mode (lever and tetrahedral silicone tip 14 to 16 μm high and doped with antimony). The resonance frequency was 320 kHz.