Oxidation of Au/Ag films by oxygen plasma: phase separation and generation of nanoporosity

• Abdel-Aziz El Mel,
• Said A. Mansour,
• Mujaheed Pasha,
• Atef Zekri,
• Janarthanan Ponraj,
• Akshath Shetty and
• Yousef Haik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1608–1614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.143

• between gold and silver (Figure 7). HAADF and EDS-STEM image analysis revealed that the column was mainly constituted of gold surrounded with silver. This suggests that the migration of silver to the upper surface might have resulted from a grain-boundary diffusion mechanism. Indeed, in thin films silver

Interaction of Te and Se interlayers with Ag or Au nanofilms in sandwich structures

• Arkadiusz Ciesielski,
• Lukasz Skowronski,
• Marek Trzcinski,
• Ewa Górecka,
• Wojciech Pacuski and
• Tomasz Szoplik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 238–246, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.22

• adhesion of plasmonic metals to almost any ultrasmooth substrate. However, most of the aforementioned elements migrate inside the metal structure as a result of either grain boundary diffusion or segregation [20][21]. This deteriorates both the optical and electrical properties of the plasmonic layers. The

• hard to tell, whether this is the result of grain boundary segregation or grain boundary diffusion of selenium in the metal. Figure 3 presents the imaginary parts of permittivity and electron energy loss function values for all of the investigated 35 nm-thick layers measured two weeks after deposition

Growth model and structure evolution of Ag layers deposited on Ge films

• Arkadiusz Ciesielski,
• Lukasz Skowronski,
• Ewa Górecka,
• Jakub Kierdaszuk and
• Tomasz Szoplik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 66–76, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.9

• segregation is completed, a competing process of grain boundary diffusion can still modify the distribution of Ge atoms within the silver layer, influencing the density slope and optical parameters [28]. For all non-annealed samples, regardless of the Ge-to-Ag ratio, the changes in transmission from one stage

Annealing-induced recovery of indents in thin Au(Fe) bilayer films

• Anna Kosinova,
• Ruth Schwaiger,
• Leonid Klinger and
• Eugen Rabkin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 2088–2099, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.199

• ) annihilation of the loops, formation of the hillock, and generation of excess vacancies and the grain boundary pore, (iii) dissipation of the hillock and the grain boundary pore by surface and grain boundary diffusion mechanisms. This morphology transformation is controlled by irreversible processes, such as

• dislocations climb, surface diffusion, and grain boundary diffusion. It is interesting that reversible formation/annihilation of hillocks at the indented sites upon heating/cooling was demonstrated in bulk and thin film samples of shape memory NiTi alloy [28]. This was achieved by planarizing the as-produced

• boundary and the film-substrate interface. Later, the pore absorbs the material from the film surface by grain boundary diffusion, leading to the development of the near-hillock depression. The phenomenon observed in this work can be employed for the design of surface topography of thin metal films. While

A new approach to grain boundary engineering for nanocrystalline materials

• Shigeaki Kobayashi,
• Sadahiro Tsurekawa and
• Tadao Watanabe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1829–1849, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.176

• materials with an extremely high density of grain boundaries is different in polycrystalline materials with conventional grain structure. Grain boundary sliding, grain boundary diffusion-controlled creep, and the contribution of triple line diffusion have been proposed as possible mechanisms of deformation

Fast diffusion of silver in TiO₂ nanotube arrays

• Wanggang Zhang,
• Yiming Liu,
• Diaoyu Zhou,
• Hui Wang,
• Wei Liang and
• Fuqian Yang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1129–1140, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.105

• diffusion of Ag atoms on the outmost surface of the TiO2 nanotubes in the temperature range of 300 to 500 °C is 157 kJ/mol, which is less than that for the lattice diffusion of Ag and larger than that for the grain boundary diffusion. The diffusion of Ag atoms leads to the formation of Ag nanocrystals on

• for the migration/diffusion of Ag atoms on the outmost surface of the TiO2 nanotubes in the temperature range of 300 to 500 °C. There are studies on the diffusion of Ag, including self-diffusion, grain boundary diffusion, and diffusion of Ag in amorphous TiO2 films. Table 1 summarises the data

• diffusivity for the grain boundary diffusion of Ag with the activation energy being less than that for the lattice diffusion of Ag and larger than that for the grain boundary diffusion. Such a result suggests that both the grain boundary diffusion of Ag and the interface diffusion on the surface of the TiO2

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

• gradients developed by the diffusion processes itself. Keywords: diffusion-induced grain boundary migration; grain boundary diffusion; nanocrystalline films; Introduction It is known that during interdiffusion in micro- or nanocrystalline samples at low temperatures grain boundary (GB) diffusion-induced

On the structure of grain/interphase boundaries and interfaces

• K. Anantha Padmanabhan and
• Herbert Gleiter

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1603–1615, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.172

• those of volume diffusion and grain boundary diffusion in crystalline materials, all of which are less than that of severely plastically deformed grain boundaries, seems to be in line with this idea. Construction of 3D structures that incorporate these ideas is likely to be a challenge. There is also a

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

• using a simple model the interface velocity in both the Cu and Au layers were estimated from the linear increase of the average composition and its value is about two orders of magnitude larger in Au (ca. 10−11 m/s) than in Cu (ca. 10−13 m/s). Keywords: Cu/Au; grain boundary diffusion; nanofilms of

• either remained the same or even decreased after the heat treatments. Thus, the overall cold homogenization takes place through grain boundary diffusion induced grain boundary motion and a solid state reaction controlled by the interface diffusion along the newly formed interfaces. The XRD and TEM

• processes are interface/grain boundary diffusion controlled: After the formation of the new phase in the GBs, the process takes place through the atomic transport along the moving GB (like in the classical DIGM, when a solid solution is left behind) or along the interfaces of the new ordered phase (in this