The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of gold using trifluorophosphine gold (I) chloride, a simple and volatile inorganic precursor, is presented. Both solid precursor and its toluene solutions were used as starting materials. With the solid precursor placed in a simple bubbler, adhesive and continuous gold thin films were grown on Ta/TaN/SiO2/Si substrates with a growth rate of only 8 angstrom min(-1). However, with a liquid delivery system using 2.5% precursor solution in toluene with a volume rate of 0.3 mL min(-1), a growth rate of 200 min(-1) was achieved. Both H-2 and N-2 were used as carrier gas, but only in the case of H2 were compact and highly pure 100-200 nm thick gold films grown on Ta/TaN/SiO2/Si at deposition temperature as low as 110 degrees C. The dependence of the deposition process and characteristics of gold deposited films, such as morphology, microstructure, and chemical composition, on deposition temperature and the nature of the carrier gas (N-2 or H-2) was also investigated. (c) 2007 The Electrochemical Society.