Electromigration-induced local dewetting in Cu films

The continuous downscaling of microelectronics has introduced many reliability issues on interconnect. Electromigration and dewetting are major reliability concerns in high-temperature micro- and nanoscale devices. In this paper, the local dewetting of copper thin film during the electromigration test was first found and investigated. When...

Improved PECVD processed hydrogenated germanium films through temperature induced densification

Amorphous and nano-crystalline germanium is of potential interest for a wide range of electronic, optical, opto-electronic and photovoltaic applications. In this work the influence of deposition temperature on hydrogenated germanium (Ge:H) films was characterized, using over 200 Ge:H and over 70 SiGe:H films. The demonstrated temperature...

In-situ bandaged Josephson junctions for superconducting quantum processors

Shadow evaporation is commonly used to micro-fabricate the key element of superconducting qubits—the Josephson junction. However, in conventional two-angle deposition circuit topology, unwanted stray Josephson junctions are created which contribute to dielectric loss. So far, this could be avoided by shorting the stray junctions with a so...

Single-crystal copper films on sapphire

Single-crystal copper films on sapphire have recently been reported upon in relation to graphene growth on these films. In the present paper the kinetics of the formation of single crystal copper films is investigated. We demonstrate the importance of heating the sapphire substrate in 1000 hPa oxygen, followed by a fast cooling prior to...

Light trapping in Si thin film solar cell

This thesis is structured in six distinct chapters. In Chapter 1 a general introduction is given to address the main challenge in thin-film silicon solar cells and to motivate the need for light trapping. This chapter also describes the main focus of this thesis and the urge to understand the light behaviour inside a periodic waveguide thin film...

Thorium effect on the oxidation of uranium: Photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS/UPS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) investigation on (U1 − xThx)O2 (x = 0 to 1) thin films

Thin films of U_1− xTh_xO₂ (x = 0 to 1) have been deposited via reactive DC sputter technique and characterized by X-ray/Ultra-violet Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS/UPS), X-ray Powder Diffractometer (XRD) and Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) in order to understand the effect of Thorium on the oxidation mechanism. During...

Oscillations of a string on an elastic foundation with space and time-varying rigidity

The dynamics of a string on an elastic foundation with time- and coordinate-dependent coefficients have been studied. Asymptotic solutions have been constructed for the following cases: for an arbitrary value of the elastic foundation coefficient at small and large time values, and for small and large coefficients of the elastic foundation at...

Amorphous MnO2 thin film cathode for rechargeable lithium batteries

Kinetics of tungsten low-pressure chemical-vapor deposition using WF6 and SiH4 studied by in situ growth-rate measurements