Synthesis of Morphology-Improved Single-Crystalline Iron Silicide Nanowires with Enhanced Physical Characteristics

Single-crystalline iron silicide nanowires were synthesized via an original approach, pre-deposition method (PDM), with significantly improved morphologies and physical characteristics as compared with those fabricated by conventional chemical vapor deposition....

Graphene Growth on and Transfer From Platinum Thin Films

This paper presents graphene growth on Pt thin films deposited with four different adhesion layers: Ti, Cr, Ta, and Ni. During the graphene growth at 1000 °C using conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, these adhesion layers diffuse into and alloy with Pt layer resulting in graphene to grown on different alloys. This means that each different adhesion layers induce a different quality and number of layer(s) of graphene grown on the Pt thin film. This paper presents the feasibility of graphene growth on Pt thin films with various adhesion layers and the obstacles needed to overcome in order to enhance graphene transfer from Pt thin films. Therefore, this paper addresses one of the major difficulties of graphene growth and transfer to the implementation of graphene in nano/micro-electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) devices.

Innovative 3C-SiC on SiC via Direct Wafer Bonding

In this paper, we report on a novel direct wafer bonding technique; Si (111) wafers to polycrystalline silicon carbide carrier wafers. The purpose of this work is to provide a platform for 3C-SiC epitaxial growth above the wafer bonded Si (111) wafers. We have demonstrated reduced wafer bow, confirmed by optical microscopy together with a digital camera. 3C-SiC epitaxial layers have been grown by conventional chemical vapor deposition techniques above Si/SiC structures. All of these 3C-SiC epitaxial layers are highly crystalline in nature. In the future, the realization of thick, bow-free 3C-SiC layers suitable for power device fabrication is achievable.

Microstructured Optical Fibers as New Nanotemplates for High Pressure CVD

Solid state chemists have long been interested in templated growth of materials using many approaches. The resulting materials have been useful in areas as diverse as photonics and catalysis. Microstructured optical fibers (MOFs) form a new class of nanotemplates that can have sub 20 nm pores that are meters to kilometers long. We have developed a high-pressure microfluidic chemical process that allows for conformal deposition of materials within MOFs to form the most extreme aspect ratio semiconductor nanowires known. The wires can be spatially organized with respect to each other at dimensions down to the nanoscale because the MOF templates can be designed with almost any desired periodic or aperiodic pattern. Many if not most of the chemistries used for conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) can be adapted for this process. The resulting materials should enable a large range of scientific and technological applications.

Advanced Properties of Silicon Oxynitride (SiOxNy) Thin Films Prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition

A pulsed laser deposition technique has been used to grow silicon oxynitride (SiOxNy) thin films at low deposition temperatures (25°C - 300°C). the thin films were found to be quite smooth in surface morphology, extremely inert in chemical solution and highly transparent in the optical range of 0.3 μm to 5 μm. the refractive index was tunable between 1.4 - 2.1 by the addition of oxygen in substitution of nitrogen in the film, and the dielectric constant is much larger than the similar films grown by conventional chemical vapor deposition. the high quality of the SiOxNy films deposited at such low temperatures was resulted from the large kinetic energy carried by the impinging particles created by the ablation of a high-power pulsed excimer laser. the kinetic energy of the impinged particles on the substrate provides thermal energy for surface diffusion and relaxation.