Postdeposition UV-Ozone Treatment: An Enabling Technique to Enhance the Direct Adhesion of Gold Thin Films to Oxidized Silicon

We found that continuous films of gold (Au) on oxidized silicon (SiO) substrates, upon treatment with ultraviolet (UV)-ozone, exhibit strong adhesion to the SiO support. Importantly, the enhancement is independent of micro- or nanostructuring of such nanometer-thick films. Deposition of a second Au layer on top of the pretreated Au layer makes the adhesion stable for at least 5 months in environmental air. Using this treatment method enables us to large-scale fabricate various SiO-supported Au structures at various thicknesses with dimensions spanning from a few hundreds of nanometers to a few micrometers, without the use of additional adhesion layers. We explain the observed adhesion improvement as polarization-induced increased strength of AuSi bonds at the Au-SiO interface due to the formation of a gold oxide monolayer on the Au surface by the UV-ozone treatment. Our simple and enabling method thus provides opportunities for patterning Au micro/nanostructures on SiO substrates without an intermediate metallic adhesion layer, which is critical for biosensing and nanophotonic applications.