Formation of silicon nanodots via ion beam sputtering of ultrathin gold thin film coatings on Si
Date of this Version
5-31-2011Citation
Formation of silicon nanodots via ion beam sputtering of ultrathin gold thin film coatings on Si. Osman El-AtwaniEmail author, Sami Ortoleva, Alex Cimaroli and Jean Paul Allain. Nanoscale Research Letters 2011 6:403
Abstract
Ion beam sputtering of ultrathin film Au coatings used as a physical catalyst for self-organization of Si nanostructures has been achieved by tuning the incident particle energy. This approach holds promise as a scalable nanomanufacturing parallel processing alternative to candidate nanolithography techniques. Structures of 11- to 14-nm Si nanodots are formed with normal incidence low-energy Ar ions of 200 eV and fluences above 2 x 10(17) cm(-2). In situ surface characterization during ion irradiation elucidates early stage ion mixing migration mechanism for nanodot self-organization. In particular, the evolution from gold film islands to the formation of ion-induced metastable gold silicide followed by pure Si nanodots formed with no need for impurity seeding.
Discipline(s)
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
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This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Nanoscale Research Letters 2011 6:403 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1556-276X-6-403. The following article has been submitted to/accepted by SpringerOpen. Copyright (2011) Osman El-Atwani, Sami Ortoleva, Alex Cimaroli and Jean Paul Allain. This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.