Nanostructured Au films were deposited on Si (111) by room-temperature sputtering. By the atomic force microscopy technique we studied the evolution of the Au film morphology as a function of the film thickness h and annealing time t at 873 K. By the study of the evolution of the mean vertical and horizontal sizes of the islands forming the film and of their fraction of covered area as a function of h from 1.7× 10 17 to 1.0× 10 18 Au/cm 2 we identified four different growth stages such as:(1) 1.7× 10 17≤ h≤ 3.0× 10 17 Au/cm 2⁠, nucleation of nanometric three-dimensional (3D) hemispherical Au clusters;(2) 3.0× 10 17< h≤ 5.2× 10 17 Au/cm 2⁠, lateral growth of the Au clusters;(3) 5.2× 10 17< h≤ 7.7× 10 17 Au/cm 2⁠, coalescence of the Au clusters;(4) 7.7× 10 17< h≤ 1.0× 10 18 Au/cm 2⁠, vertical growth of the coalesced Au clusters. The application of the dynamic scaling theory of growing interfaces allowed us to …