This work presents the study to obtain Au nanoparticles inside ZnO thin films by MeV Si and Au ion irradiation of multilayer Au/ZnO thin films.  Layers of ZnO between 100-300 nm were grown by RF sputtering on SiO₂ and Si substrates. Au thin films between 20-50 nm were grown by evaporation. The samples were annealed at different temperatures between 500^oC to 700^oC in air during 1 hour. After the thermal treatment some samples were irradiated by Si ions and others by Au ions at several MeV energies. The samples were characterized before and after the treatments by different techniques: Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) were used for surface characterization; Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) for particle characterization; X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) for changes in ZnO atomic structure; Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) for determination of films thickness and the stoichiometry; Light absorption for optical properties and nanoparticle formation.

After irradiations the XRD patterns show the proper reflections reported in literature (JCPDS 36-1451) for ZnO. The optical absorption spectra in the 400-800 nm wavelength indicate the generation of Au nanoclusters through the observation of their Surface Plasmon of Resonance (SPR). The results obtained from RBS provide information about ZnO and Au distribution in the samples. Only Au irradiations produce uniform nanoparticles distributions.