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The impact of real sintering structures on the macroscopic stress state and yield locus of sintered silver was investigated and a novel continuum modelling approach that predicts the macroscopic properties in an accurate, simple and efficient way was derived. Focused-Ion-Beam (FIB) tomography was utilized to study silver films, which were sintered under a wide range of processing conditions. With reconstructed three-dimensional representative volume elements (RVE), linear elastic and linear elastic–perfect plastic Finite-Element-Analyses were performed for a variety of loading states. The stress state ratios and the plastic yielding were investigated with respect to the mesostructural quantities obtained from the FIB tomography. The specific pore surface area and the fractional density were found to represent characteristic scalar measures for the sintering structure, which were further used to formulate a thermodynamic consistent continuum model for the macroscopic stress state and yield locus. An assessment of the modelling approach showed good coincidence of the macroscopic stress state with experiments and simulations from literature and a 43 % better prediction accuracy for the yield locus compared to established modelling approaches. The transferability of the model parameters to different silver sintering raw materials was partially proved by literature results and promises reduced parameterization effort.

The ‘quantum engineering’ of creation of the new forms of matter grown on the surface of semiconductor crystals is reviewed. The growth mechanisms for metal films on the semiconductor substrates are analyzed. The effects of a semiconductor substrate of III–V group on the morphology of the silver-films’ growth are considered. An influence of temperature on the morphology of films is described. The stability conditions for a low-temperature growth of Ag films on the Si(001)2×1 and Si(111)7×7 surfaces are revealed. As concluded, the quantum effects play a crucial role in the design of atomically flat metallic silver layers on the series of single crystal planes.

Thin film depositions of metallic silver were performed by the MOCVD (Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition) technique on glass substrate using, as precursors, the two new compounds (1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoro-2,4-pentanedionato)(2,2’-bipyridine)silver(I), [Ag(hfac)(bipy)] (1), and (1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoro-2,4-pentanedionato)(N,N,N’,N’-tetramethylethylenediamine)silver(I), [Ag(hfac)(tmeda)] (2). Both silver compounds were characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction measurements, indicating that 1 exists as a dimeric species, and 2 as polymeric chains. The films were analysed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealing, a high crystallinity and fairly good quality with little carbon and oxygen contamination when using the tetramethylethylenediamine derivative

Ultra-thin films with low surface roughness that support surface plasmon-polaritons in the infra-red and visible ranges are needed in order to improve the performance of devices based on the manipulation of plasmon propagation. Increasing amount of efforts is made in order not only to improve the quality of the deposited layers but also to diminish their thickness and to find new materials that could be used in this field. In this review, we consider various thin films used in the field of plasmonics and metamaterials in the visible and IR range. We focus our presentation on technological issues of their deposition and reported characterization of film plasmonic performance.

Adsorption of thiourea, N,N′-diphenylthiourea (DIPTU), N-ethyl-N′-phenylthiourea (ETPTU) and N-(p-nitrophenyl)thiourea (NPTU), from acidic and neutral solutions, on chemically deposited silver film substrates are investigated using Fourier transform surface-enhanced Raman scattering (FT-SERS) technique. A strong band in the low frequency region, around 230 cm−1 in the FT-SERS spectra of all these systems, assigned to Ag–S stretch, indicates a preferential adsorption through the sulfur atom. The frequencies and bandwidths of benzene ring vibrational modes in ETPTU as well as DIPTU are almost unaffected by adsorption indicating that benzene rings do not interact directly with the silver surface. A cis-cis conformation (both imino H-atoms cis with respect to thione sulfur atom) is proposed for DIPTU and ETPTU on the silver surface. In the case of NPTU, an additional interaction through the benzene ring is also observed as shown by the frequency shifts and band broadening of some benzene ring modes and weak intensity of the C–H stretching band.

The authors of ref. 1 state that their numerical calculation of the transmission intensity dependence of very simple subwavelength planar structures in a silver film agrees well with an earlier-developed model, but both model and numerical simulation show significant disagreement with the experimental results of ref. 3. The authors speculate that the silver surfaces of the subwavelength structures used in ref. 3 were contaminated by an 11 nm overlayer of silver sulphide, because such a layer would bring the reported experimental results and their calculations into better agreement.

A novel chemical approach was demonstrated for the growth of high-quality, silver films by CVD. This concept relies on the catalytic reactivity of cationic silver, and of silver surfaces with alcohols. This leads to high-purity films using either state-of-the-art precursors or silver salts that have not been yet considered as CVD precursors. The occurrence of the catalytic oxidative-dehvdrogenation of alcohols, considered as the driving force in this process, was shown by in-situ mass spectrometry (MS). Films of fcc-Ag with p