Helium ion beam induced growth of hammerhead AFM probes

The authors report the direct-write growth of hammerhead atomic force microscope(AFM) probes by He+beam induced deposition of platinum-carbon. In order to grow a thin nanoneedle on top of a conventional AFM probe, the authors move a focused He+beam during exposure to a PtC precursor gas. In the final growth stage, a perpendicular movement of the...

Hydrogen termination of CVD diamond films by high-temperature annealing at atmospheric pressure

A high-temperature procedure to hydrogenate diamond films using molecular hydrogen at atmospheric pressure was explored. Undoped and doped chemical vapour deposited (CVD) polycrystalline diamond films were treated according to our annealing method using a H2 gas flow down to ?50 ml/min (STP) at ?850?°C. The films were extensively evaluated by...

Ultrahigh throughput plasma processing of free standing silicon nanocrystals with lognormal size distribution

We demonstrate a method for synthesizing free standing silicon nanocrystals in an argon/silane gas mixture by using a remote expanding thermal plasma. Transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy measurements reveal that the distribution has a bimodal shape consisting of two distinct groups of small and large silicon nanocrystals with...

Position-controlled [100] InP nanowire arrays

We investigate the growth of vertically standing [100] zincblende InP nanowire (NW) arrays on InP (100) substrates in the vapor-liquid-solid growth mode using low-pressure metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy. Precise positioning of these NWs is demonstrated by electron beam lithography. The vertical NW yield can be controlled by different...

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited under accurately controlled ion bombardment using pulse-shaped substrate biasing

We have applied pulse-shaped biasing to the expanding thermal plasma deposition of hydrogenated amorphous silicon at substrate temperatures ? 200?°C and growth rates around 1 nm/s. Substrate voltage measurements and measurements with a retarding field energy analyzer demonstrate the achieved control over the ion energy distribution for...

Position controlled nanowires for infrared single photon emission

We report the experimental demonstration of single-photon and cascaded photon pair emission in the infrared, originating from a single InAsP quantum dot embedded in a standing InP nanowire. A regular array of nanowires is fabricated by epitaxial growth on an electron-beam patterned substrate. Photoluminescence spectra taken on single quantum...

On the surface roughness development of hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited at low growth rates

The surface roughness evolution of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films has been studied using in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry for a temperature range of 150–400?°C. The effect of external rf substrate biasing on the coalescence phase is discussed and a removal/densification of a hydrogen-rich layer is suggested to explain the...

X-ray investigation of buried SiGe islands for devices with strain-enhanced mobility

In this work self-organized SiGe islands are used as stressors for Si capping layers, which later act as carrier channels in field effect transistors. To be able to address individual islands and to obtain a sufficiently narrow distribution of their properties, the SiGe islands are grown by molecular beam epitaxy on prepatterned Si substrates,...

SiGe growth on patterned Si(001) substrates: Surface evolution and evidence of modified island coarsening

The morphological evolution of both pits and SiGe islands on patterned Si(001) substrates is investigated. With increasing Si buffer layer thickness the patterned holes transform into multifaceted pits before evolving into inverted truncated pyramids. SiGe island formation and evolution are studied by systematically varying the Ge coverage and...