 Solution

Use thermal evaporation or electron-beam evaporation: evaporated Au travels approximately ballistically to the Si wafer. For line-of-sight deposition, the gas mean free pathshould greatly exceed the source-wafer distance $L$. Increasing the chamber's useful transport length therefore requires a proportionately lower pressure to retain the same $\ell /L$, for fixed gas and temperature. There is no universal pressure requirement determined by chamber volume alone.

A distant compact source gives a more uniform angular flux across the wafer, but the deposition rate falls roughly as $L^{-2}$. For an ideal cosine-emitting point source and a parallel wafer, the relative thickness at lateral radius $r$ is approximately $[1+(r/L{)}^2{]}^{-2}$. Mitigate the trade-off with wafer rotation and planetary motion, multiple or extended sources, shaped masks and suitable source/wafer geometry. Rotation averages azimuthal variation; ordinary rotation alone does not remove a purely radial thickness gradient. A thin Ti or Cr adhesion layer may be needed for robust Au adhesion to oxidized Si.