Electrophoretic deposited gold nanoparticle thin film on silver substrate

Effects of the deposition time and voltage on the characteristics of gold nanoparticles (NPs) thin films, prepared by the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method on the silver substrate, were investigated experimentally. Au NPs were synthesised using the pulsed laser ablation method in distilled water. The suspended solution of the gold NPs was used as the electrolyte of EPD. An irradiation was carried out by the fundamental wavelength of a Q-switched NdYAG laser at 1064 nm and 7 ns pulse width. The electrophoretic deposition apparatus consisted of two 2 x 2 cm pieces of silver plates as the electrodes. They were immersed in parallel with a 7 mm gap in the gold NP suspension. Five samples of gold NP thin films were prepared at different deposition times and applied voltages. Results show that the roughness, thickness and surface quality of EPD prepared thin films can be strongly controlled by the deposition time and applied voltage. The thickness of deposited films was dependent on the voltage of deposition in which their roughness was increased with increasing the deposition time. Furthermore, the reflection of deposited films was affected by the surface roughness.