Influence of water contamination on the sputtering of silicon with low-energy argon ions investigated by molecular dynamics simulations

• Grégoire R. N. Defoort-Levkov,
• Alan Bahm and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 986–1003, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.86

• . Depending on the application, the ion beam energy is in the range of 10 to 30 keV when small spot sizes are required (i.e., spot sizes in the nanometre range) and at a few keV or even in the sub-keV range when low surface damage or minimized atomic mixing is required. One example is low-energy depth

• profiling SIMS to resolve thin films in multilayered samples [14]. Another example is TEM sample preparation, where the achievement of the highest lateral resolutions in the subsequent TEM analysis requires lamellae thicknesses between 10 and 20 nm, but goes along with a typical amorphous layer of 2 to 4 nm

Impact of GaAs(100) surface preparation on EQE of AZO/Al₂O₃/p-GaAs photovoltaic structures

• Piotr Caban,
• Rafał Pietruszka,
• Jarosław Kaszewski,
• Monika Ożga,
• Bartłomiej S. Witkowski,
• Krzysztof Kopalko,
• Piotr Kuźmiuk,
• Katarzyna Gwóźdź,
• Ewa Płaczek-Popko,
• Krystyna Lawniczak-Jablonska and
• Marek Godlewski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 578–592, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.48

• ) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) examinations were conducted to obtain structural details of the devices. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with depth profiling was used to examine interface structure and changes in the elemental content and chemical bonds. The photoluminescence (PL

• 2p and Zn, Ga and As 3d spin–orbit doublets were measured. The spectra were analyzed using the commercial CASA XPS software package (Casa Software Ltd, version 2.3.17) with Shirley background. The spectra were fitted with a mixed Gaussian–Lorentzian (GL(30)) function. The depth profiling was

• exceptionally even in the observed region. Characterization of the architecture of the devices by XPS To understand the interface structure, changes in elemental content, and chemical bonds XPS was performed together with depth profiling. Two representative samples, with the highest (A2) and lowest (B1) EQE

Controlling surface morphology and sensitivity of granular and porous silver films for surface-enhanced Raman scattering, SERS

• Sherif Okeil and
• Jörg J. Schneider

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2813–2831, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.263

• characterization of hydrogen and nitrogen plasma treated silver films Neither XPS analysis nor Auger spectroscopy could detect the presence of nitrogen in the nitrogen plasma treated samples (Figure 4a and Figures S9–S11 and Table S1 and Table S2, Supporting Information File 1). Even depth profiling using Auger

Optimization of Mo/Cr bilayer back contacts for thin-film solar cells

• Nima Khoshsirat,
• Fawad Ali,
• Vincent Tiing Tiong,
• Mojtaba Amjadipour,
• Hongxia Wang,
• Mahnaz Shafiei and
• Nunzio Motta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2700–2707, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.252

• regions were acquired with 10 eV pass energy and about 0.4 eV spectral resolution to discriminate the substructure of the spectral lines. Ar+ ion cluster etching was employed for XPS depth profiling and the calibration was carried out using a typical Mo on glass sample with sputtering rate of 15.5 nm/s

• . Depth profiling was conducted on a 1 × 1 mm2 area with a Ar+ ion beam energy of 10 keV and large cluster size (n = 2000). Results and Discussion Adhesion The first characterization step was the adhesion test performed on Mo layers after deposition on uncoated and Cr-coated glass substrates. All samples

• mechanism of Cr and Na to the top layer, we first heated the Mo/Cr films on SLG to 550 °C for 30 min in argon atmosphere. This is the temperature that is normally used for sulfurization and selenization of CIGS and CZTS layers. Then XPS depth profiling was performed on the annealed Mo/Cr films to search for

Ta₂N₃ nanocrystals grown in Al₂O₃ thin layers

• Krešimir Salamon,
• Maja Buljan,
• Iva Šarić,
• Mladen Petravić and
• Sigrid Bernstorff

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2162–2170, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.215

• not for the thinner ML. XPS To further characterize the chemical states of tantalum within the MLs, we analyzed all samples with XPS in-depth profiling at several depths. The information about Ta bonding to N atoms was obtained from the chemical shifts in the photoemission spectra around the Ta 4f, Ta

Relationships between chemical structure, mechanical properties and materials processing in nanopatterned organosilicate fins

• Gheorghe Stan,
• Richard S. Gates,
• Qichi Hu,
• Kevin Kjoller,
• Craig Prater,
• Kanwal Jit Singh,
• Ebony Mays and
• Sean W. King

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 863–871, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.88

• removal and reinsertion of terminal organic (CH3) groups in the matrix. Further examination of this effect as a function of fin width and additional recently demonstrated depth-profiling CR-AFM mechanical property measurements [34] indicate that the loss of CH3 groups and the increase of mechanical

Precise in situ etch depth control of multilayered III−V semiconductor samples with reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS) equipment

• Ann-Kathrin Kleinschmidt,
• Lars Barzen,
• Johannes Strassner,
• Christoph Doering,
• Henning Fouckhardt,
• Wolfgang Bock,
• Michael Wahl and
• Michael Kopnarski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1783–1793, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.171

• investigated by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), using a TOF–SIMS IV instrument from ION-TOF GmbH, Muenster, Germany. Applying the so-called dual beam depth profiling technique with 2 keV Cs+ as sputter ions and 20 keV Bi3+ as analysis ions, the thickness of the sputtered Al0.5Ga0.5As (i.e., Al

Numerical investigation of depth profiling capabilities of helium and neon ions in ion microscopy

• Patrick Philipp,
• Lukasz Rzeznik and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1749–1760, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.168

• . Irradiation induced damage and depth profiling capabilities obtained with these light rare gas species have been far less investigated than ion species used classically in SIMS. In this paper we simulated the sputtering of multi-layered polymer samples using the BCA (binary collision approximation) code

• SD_TRIM_SP to study preferential sputtering and atomic mixing in such samples up to a fluence of 1018 ions/cm2. Results show that helium primary ions are completely inappropriate for depth profiling applications with this kind of sample materials while results for neon are similar to argon. The latter is

• specifically secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), analysis of organic samples by sputtering is also one important field of applications and the kind of damage mentioned for previous applications remains the same. However, for depth profiling applications of polymers [19] and biological samples [20

Experimental and simulation-based investigation of He, Ne and Ar irradiation of polymers for ion microscopy

• Lukasz Rzeznik,
• Yves Fleming,
• Tom Wirtz and
• Patrick Philipp

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1113–1128, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.104

• influenced a lot by the impact energy of the primary ions. At higher energies required for the high-resolution imaging, the preferential sputtering is more important than at the low energies used for depth profiling. For PTFE, the difference between initial sample composition and surface composition after a

• (methyl methacrylate). Comparison to more conventional SIMS conditions is obtained by using argon bombardment in addition to helium and neon bombardment. The impact energies of 1 keV to 30 keV have been chosen to cover the conditions for depth profiling and imaging. Changing topography of PMMA bombarded

Determination of the compositions of the DIGM zone in nanocrystalline Ag/Au and Ag/Pd thin films by secondary neutral mass spectrometry

• Gábor Y. Molnár,
• Shenouda S. Shenouda,
• Gábor L. Katona,
• Gábor A. Langer and
• Dezső L. Beke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 474–483, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.41

• by grain boundary diffusion-induced grain boundary migration is investigated by secondary neutral mass spectrometry depth profiling in Ag/Au and Ag/Pd nanocrystalline thin film systems. It is shown that the compositions in zones left behind the moving boundaries can be determined by this technique if

• ][19][20] it was indicated that the compositions in the DIGM zones can be determined by secondary neutral mass spectrometry (SNMS) depth profiling. It was shown that i) as it was illustrated in the Cu/Ni system already in 1983 [21], alloying can also take place in the faster component, similarly as in

• homogenization in bilayer films is possible on both sides, and the compositions in the DIGM zones can be followed by SNMS depth profiling. Let us check whether the relations in Equation 1 and Equation 2 give a quantitative explanation for our experimental results or not. It can be seen that the above relations

Formation of Cu_xAu_1−x phases by cold homogenization of Au/Cu nanocrystalline thin films

• Alona Tynkova,
• Gabor L. Katona,
• Gabor A. Langer,
• Sergey I. Sidorenko,
• Svetlana M. Voloshko and
• Dezso L. Beke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1491–1500, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.162

• , Hungary 10.3762/bjnano.5.162 Abstract It is shown, by using depth profiling with a secondary neutral mass spectrometer and structure investigations by XRD and TEM, that at low temperatures, at which the bulk diffusion is frozen, a complete homogenization can take place in the Cu/Au thin film system

• shown in Figure 1. The presence of the smeared interface in the as-deposited sample can be explained by some initial surface roughness, diffusion during the sample preparation or instrumental effects of the sputter depth profiling [27][28]. It can be clearly seen that, during heat treatments the Cu

A look underneath the SiO₂/4H-SiC interface after N₂O thermal treatments

• Patrick Fiorenza,
• Filippo Giannazzo,
• Lukas K. Swanson,
• Alessia Frazzetto,
• Simona Lorenti,
• Mario S. Alessandrino and
• Fabrizio Roccaforte

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 249–254, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.26

• smooth morphology. A rough surface formed by facets exposing both the (0001) basal plane and the (11−2n) facets, was obtained for the second sample annealed without the cap layer. MOS capacitors were fabricated on both wafers [12]. Cross-sectional SCM was performed for carrier-depth profiling under the