Determination of the morphology of deposited islands by grazing-incidence small-angle scattering

It is shown that grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) is a suitable technique to study the morphology of gold islands deposited on a silicon wafer covered by a carbon sublayer. New possibilities of this technique are realized when using no a synchrotron source (flux and collimation) and when patterns are recorded with image plates (IPs). It is possible to study the anisotropic shape of the scattering pattern and to deduce the dimensions of the deposited clusters which are formed by the Volmer-Weber mechanism of film growth. Quantitative measurements can be made with a reference sample, leading to an absolute value of the scattered intensity.