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The presence of copper impurities is known to deteriorate the bulk minority carrier lifetime of silicon. In p-type silicon, the degradation occurs only under carrier injection (e.g., illumination), but the reason for this phenomenon called copper-related light-induced degradation (Cu-LID) has long remained uncertain. To clarify the physics of this problem, a mathematical model of Cu-LID was introduced in Paper I of this article. Within the model, kinetic precipitation simulations are interlinked with a Schottky junction model for electric behavior of metallic precipitates. As this approach enables simulating precipitation directly at the minority carrier lifetime level, the model is verified in this second part with a direct comparison to the corresponding degradation experiments and literature data. Convincing agreement is found with different doping and Cu concentrations as well as at increased temperature, and in the dark, both simulated degradation and measured degradation are very slow. In addition, modeled final lifetimes after illumination are very close to experimental final lifetimes, and a correlation with the final precipitate size is found. However, the model underestimates experimentally observed differences in the degradation rate at different illumination intensities. Nevertheless, the results of this work support the theory of Cu-LID as a precipitate formation process. Part of the results also imply that heterogeneous nucleation sites play a role during precipitate nucleation. The model reveals fundamental aspects of the physics of Cu-LID including how doping and heterogeneous nucleation site concentrations can considerably influence the final recombination activity.

We demonstrate efficient surface passivation of GaAs nanowires using ultrathin in-situ grown epitaxial InP and GaP capping layers, with metallo-organic vapor phase epitaxy as the growth system. The passivation increased photoluminescence intensity by three orders of magnitude compared to unpassivated nanowires, and the effect remained strong after a month of storage in air. Effective passivation was acquired over a wide range of growth temperatures, although the highest studied temperatures caused additional detrimental effects such as etching and GaAsP formation. The capping layer thickness was in the order of few monolayers. Therefore, the impact on any other properties of the nanowires besides the surface states was minuscule. As a simple and effective method the studied capping layers offer an excellent way for nanowire passivation.

Nickel is increasingly used in both IC and photovoltaic device fabrication, yet it has the potential to create highly recombination-active precipitates in silicon. For nearly three decades, the accepted nickel diffusivity in silicon has been DNi(T)=2.3×10exp−3 exp(−0.47 eV/kBT) cm2/s, a surprisingly low value given reports of rapid nickel diffusion in industrial applications. In this paper, we employ modern experimental methods to measure the higher nickel diffusivity DNi(T)=(1.69±0.74)×10exp−4 exp(−0.15±0.04 eV/kBT) cm2/s. The measured activation energy is close to that predicted by first-principles theory using the nudged-elastic-band method. Our measured diffusivity of nickel is higher than previously published values at temperatures below 1150 °C, and orders of magnitude higher when extrapolated to room temperature.

International audience; We demonstrate that an extraction enhancement by a factor of 2.8 can be obtained for a GaN quantum well structure using metallic nanostructures, compared to a flat semiconductor. The InGaN/GaN quantum well is inserted into a dielectric waveguide, naturally formed in the structure, and a silver grating is deposited on the surface and covered with a polymer film. The polymer layer greatly improves the extraction compared to a single metallic grating. The comparison of the experiments with simulations gives strong indications on the key role of weakly guided modes in the polymer layer diffracted by the grating.

Plasma hydrophilization and subsequent hydrophobic recovery are studied for ten different polymers of microfabrication interest: polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polymethylmethacrylate, polycarbonate, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, epoxy polymer SU-8, hybrid polymer ORMOCOMP, polycaprolactone, and polycaprolactone/D,L-lactide (P(CL/DLLA)). All polymers are treated identically with oxygen and nitrogen plasmas, in order to make comparisons between polymers as easy as possible. The primary measured parameter is the contact angle, which was measured on all polymers for more than 100 days in order to determine the kinetics of the hydrophobic recovery for both dry stored and rewashed samples. Clear differences and trends are observed both between different polymers and between different plasma parameters.

Surface passivation of GaAs by ammonia plasma and AlN fabricated by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition are compared. It is shown that the deposition temperature can be reduced to 150 °C and effective passivation is still achieved. Samples passivated by AlN fabricated at 150 °C show four times higher photoluminescence intensity and longer time-resolved photoluminescence lifetime than ammonia plasma passivated samples. The passivation effect is shown to last for months. The dependence of charge carrier lifetime and integrated photoluminescence intensity on AlN layer thickness is studied using an exponential model to describe the tunneling probability from the near-surface quantum well to the GaAssurface.

Carbon nanotubes are of wide interest due to their excellent properties such as tensile strength and electrical and thermal conductivity, but are not, when placed alone on a substrate, well resistant to mechanical wear. Diamond-like carbon (DLC), on the other hand, is widely used in applications due to its very good wear resistance. Combining the two materials could provide a very durable pure carbon nanomaterial enabling to benefit from the best properties of both carbon allotropes. However, the synthesis of high-quality diamond-like carbon uses energetic plasmas, which can damage the nanotubes. From previous works it is neither clear whether the quality of the tubes remains good after DLC deposition, nor whether the DLC above the tubes retains the high sp3 bonding fraction. In this work, we use experiments and classical molecular dynamics simulations to study the mechanisms of DLC formation on various carbon nanotube compositions. The results show that high-sp3-content DLC can be formed provided the deposition conditions allow for sidewards pressure to form from a substrate close beneath the tubes. Under optimal DLC formation energies of around 40–70 eV, the top two nanotube atom layers are fully destroyed by the plasma deposition, but layers below this can retain their structural integrity.

We have developed a microfluidics based sampling system for tissue analytics. The proof-of-concept of the sampling system was demonstrated by extracting lipid samples from tissue biopsies. The sample collection system consists of a disposable silicon based multiport microneedle integrated with polymer microfluidics. The polymethyl methacrylate polymer microfluidic chip has a 10 ll sample reservoir and actuation membranes for liquid pumping. A special automated robotic system was developed to control the positioning of the needle and the sampling procedure on preselected spots on the tissue. Real breast cancer tissue samples were used to test the feasibility of the sampling system. We successfully measured indicative cancer biomarkers from the tissue surface. Phosphatidylcholine and phosphoethanolamine were extracted from the tissue membrane with methyl tert-butyl ether solvent and detected by mass spectrometry. In the future, this tool could be used in characterization of preoperative biopsies and tumour tissues removed during surgery.

Atomic-scale knowledge and control of oxidation of GaSb(100), which is a potential interface for energy-efficient transistors, are still incomplete, largely due to an amorphous structure of GaSb(100) oxides. We elucidate these issues with scanning-tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The unveiled oxidation-induced building blocks cause defect states above Fermi level around the conduction-band edge. By interconnecting the results to previous photoemission findings, we suggest that the oxidation starts with substituting second-layer Sb sites by oxygen. Adding small amount of indium on GaSb(100), resulting in a (4 × 2)-In reconstruction, before oxidation produces a previously unreported, crystalline oxidized layer of (1 × 3)-O free of gap states.

A broadband thin-film antireflective coating (ARC)—a regular array of nanopores in a dielectric substrate—is studied theoretically and experimentally. Tuning the geometrical parameters of the array allows for strong suppression of reflection. For a fused silica substrate, reflectivity is lower than 1% over a range with a relative bandwidth, 60%–70%, reaching 0.05% in the minimum. The underlying physics is the spatial dispersion in the porous medium which enables phase compensation for the partially reflected waves in a broad band. This allows for more broadband antireflection than any flat homogeneous single-layer ARC can provide. Importantly, the studied ARC is universal for any transparent dielectric substrate.

A novel method was developed for studying the ink-paper interface and the structural variations of a deposited layer of ink. Combining high-resolution x-ray tomography with laser ablation, the depth profile of ink (toner), i.e., its varying thickness, could be determined in a paper substrate. X-ray tomography was used to produce the 3D structure of paper with about 1 μm spatial resolution. Laser ablation combined with optical imaging was used to produce the 3D structure of the printed layer of ink on top of that paper with about 70 nm depth resolution. Ablation depth was calibrated with an optical profilometer. It can be concluded that a toner layer on a light-weight-coated paper substrate was strongly perturbed by protruding fibers of the base paper. Such fibers together with the surface topography of the base paper seem to be the major factors that control the leveling of toner and its penetration into a thinly coated paper substrate.

Light-induced degradation (LID) is a deleterious effect in crystalline silicon, which is considered to originate from recombination-active boron-oxygen complexes and/or copper-related defects. Although LID in both cases appears as a fast initial decay followed by a second slower degradation, we show that the time constant of copper-related degradation increases with increasing boron concentration in contrast to boron-oxygen LID. Temperature-dependent analysis reveals that the defect formation is limited by copper diffusion. Finally, interface defect density measurements confirm that copper-related LID is dominated by recombination in the wafer bulk.

Demonstrating and harnessing electroluminescent cooling at technologically viable cooling powers requires the ability to routinely fabricate large area high quality light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Detailed information on the performance and yield of relevant large area devices is not available, however. Here, we report extensive information on the yield and related large area scaling of InP/InGaAs LEDs and discuss the origin of the failure mechanisms based on lock-in thermographic imaging. The studied LEDs were fabricated as mesa structures of various sizes on epistructures grown at five different facilities specialized in the growth of III-V compound semiconductors. While the smaller mesas generally showed relatively good electrical characteristics and low leakage current densities, some of them also exhibited unusually large leakage current densities. The provided information is critical for the development and design of the optical cooling technologies relying on large area devices.

The attention towards light-emitting diode (LED) structures based on nanowires, surface plasmon coupled LEDs, and large-area high-power LEDs has been increasing for their potential in increasing the optical output power and efficiency of LEDs. In this work we demonstrate an alternative way to inject charge carriers into the active region of an LED, which is based on completely different current transport mechanism compared to conventional current injection approaches. The demonstrated structure is expected to help overcoming some of the challenges related to current injection with conventional structures. A functioning III-nitride diffusion injected light-emitting diode structure, in which the light-emitting active region is located outside the pn-junction, is realized and characterized. In this device design, the charge carriers are injected into the active region by bipolar diffusion, which could also be utilized to excite otherwise challenging to realize light-emitting structures.

We study the effect of Al doping on thermoelectric power factor of ZnO films grown using atomic layer deposition method. The overall doping level is tuned by either varying the precursor pulsing sequence or by varying the number of precursor pulses while keeping the sequence unchanged. We observe that commonly utilized doping approach when periodic dopant layers are densely packed results in reduced power factor. At the same time, we find that thermoelectric performance can be improved by clustering the dopants. In addition, the clustering was found to tune the preferred crystal orientation of the polycrystalline film.

We report a pathway to grow GaAs nanowires on a variety of substrates using a combination of atomic layer deposition and metallo-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). GaAs nanowires were grown via MOVPE at 430–540 °C on an atomic-layer-deposited Al:ZnO buffer layer. The resulting nanowires were affected only by the properties of the buffer layer, allowing nanowire growth on a number of substrates that withstand ∼400 °C. The growth occurred in two phases: initial in-plane growth and subsequent out-plane growth. The nanowires grown exhibited a strong photoluminescence signal both at room temperature and at 12 K. The 12 K photoluminescence peak was at 1.47 eV, which was attributed to Zn autodoping from the buffer layer. The crystal structure was zincblende plagued with either twin planes or diagonal defect planes, which were related to perturbations in the seed particle during the growth. The used method combines substrates with variable properties to nanowire growth on a transparent and conductive Al:ZnO buffer layer.

Intermartensite transformations (IMTs) and temperature dependence of very low twinning stress associated with Type II twin boundaries were studied experimentally in four magnetic shape memory alloys with composition Ni50Mn25 + xGa25 – x (at. %), where x was between 3.2 and 3.9. The slightly different x or Mn content resulted in slightly different martensite transformation temperatures between 309 and 328 K, but in significantly different intermartensite transformation temperatures between 10 K and 251 K, with the transformation temperature being approximately proportional to x. In all four alloys, the initial twinning stress, about 0.1 MPa at room temperature, increases sharply when approaching the IMT at lower temperatures, up to 1 MPa and more. The effect is explained by the instability of 10M martensite near the IMT from which it follows that the twinning stress dependence shall be flat for x≤2.7. That is experimentally confirmed by an additional measurement on Ni50Mn27.7Ga22.3 alloy (x = 2.7), which e...

Recent findings in nanodeformation of semiconductors posed a dilemma whether the nanoscale plasticity starts with phase transformation or nucleation of dislocations in a stressed nanovolume. In this letter we demonstrate the results of nanoindentation experiments with different loading rate, which enable us to conclude on a mechanism of incipient plasticity. The recorded nanodeformation response of GaAs and Si contrasts that observed for either GaN or metallic Fe crystal, which supports the phase transformation nature of the GaAs incipient plasticity. The derived relationship between the energy barrier for defect nucleation and applied stress served as a verification of the obtained results.

We investigate the third-order optical nonlinearity in ZnO/Al2O3 nanolaminates fabricated by atomic layer deposition and show that the third-order optical nonlinearity can be enhanced by nanoscale engineering of the thin film structure. The grain size of the polycrystalline ZnO film is controlled by varying the thickness of the ZnO layers in the nanolaminate in which thin (∼2 nm) amorphous Al2O3 layers work as stopping layers for ZnO crystal growth. Nanoscale engineering enables us to achieve a third harmonic generated signal enhancement of ∼13 times from the optimized nanolaminate structure compared to a ZnO reference film of comparable thickness.

We propose a direct electrical measurement method for determining the extraction efficiency (EXE) and internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of III-Nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The method is based on measuring the optical output power as a function of injection current at current densities near the external quantum efficiency (EQE) maximum and extracting IQE and EXE from the measurement data. In contrast to conventional methods, our method requires no low temperature measurements or prior knowledge of the device structure. The method is far more convenient than commonly used methods because it enables measuring the EXE and IQE of different LED structures at room temperature directly in a repeatable and consistent way. This enables convenient comparison of LED structures. We apply the method to determine the IQE and EXE of one commercial LED and selected self-grown planar LED chips to compare the effects of different LED structure designs. Our results are in line with published experimental results and also give more insight to our earlier findings regarding the effects of growth parameters on the quantum efficiency. In addition, our measurement method allows estimating the Shockley-Read-Hall and radiative recombination parameters if the Auger parameter is known.

Experimental evidence on low energy electron beam induced point defect activation in GaN grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy(MOVPE) is presented. The GaN samples are irradiated with a 5–20 keV electron beam of a scanning electron microscope and investigated by photoluminescence and positron annihilation spectroscopy measurements. The degradation of the band-to-band luminescence of the irradiatedGaN films is associated with the activation of point defects. The activated defects were identified as in-grown Ga-vacancies. We propose that MOVPE-GaN contains a significant concentration of passive VGa-H n complexes that can be activated by H removal during low energy electron irradiation.

We report here on the mechanical response of thiolate self-assembled monolayers, a few nanometers thick, on gold and silver substrates, using ultra-low load contact probing (the limit of the nanoindentation method used) with a relatively large spherical diamond tip. Careful analysis of a large number of experimental data points enabled us to differentiate the effects stemming from the substrate, the loading rate, and the orientation and reactivity of the molecules. Three distinct patterns for the responses of the monolayers were observed, giving insight into the mechanical response of thiol modified metal surfaces.

This letter describes a capillary-driven self-assembly technique using oleophilic/oleophobic patternedsurface and adhesive in ambient air environment. We use a topographical microstructure of porous ormocer functionalized with a fluorinated trichlorosilane for the oleophobic area and goldpatterns for the oleophilic area. The resulted oleophilic/oleophobic patterns show significant wettability contrast for adhesive (Delo 18507), with a contact angle of 119° on oleophobic part and 53° on the oleophilic part. Self-alignment of SU-8 microchips on the oleophilic/oleophobic patterns has been demonstrated. The results provide a promising solution for self-alignment of microparts using commercial adhesives in ambient air environment.