AFM and XRD characterization of silver nanoparticles films deposited on the surface of DGEBA epoxy resin by ion sputtering

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In this work, silver atoms were deposited by ion sputtering on the surface of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy resin cured at 150 °C for 6 hours in air. The films of DGEBA and its precursors were characterized by Raman spectroscopy to identify the main functional groups and their relationship with the deposited silver atoms. Silver thin films of 5, 10, 15 and 20 nm were deposited on the epoxy resin at room temperature. Both the initial film of DGEBA and the subsequent silver thin film were analyzed by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) in the non-contact mode. Silver thin films were also analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) at room temperature. The AFM results showed the formation of silver crystallites on the surface of DGEBA at very low coverage whereas XRD indicated that most of them had their main axis aligned to the normal of the surface. An increase in the coverage led to an increase in the grain size as indicated by AFM. However, XRD results indicated that the crystallite size remained almost constant while the appearance of peaks corresponding to other crystalline orientations suggests the coalescence of the original crystallites and an increase in size of the more dense planes, namely [111].