No abstract

Germanium condensation has proven to be a reliable route for obtaining smoothly graded composition SiGe layers with good reproducibility and reduced defect density. The process is known as a crucial tool to induce well-defined strain on Si or SiGe layers with potential use in semiconductor devices. In this work, we show that starting from a low concentration Si0.92Ge0.08 layer grown on top of a crystalline Si(001) on SOI substrates, we can reach desirable concentration with a nonmonotonic interplay on in-plane and out-of-plane strain. The Ge concentration is evaluated by a combination of ultralow energy secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ULE-SIMS) and synchrotron X-ray measurements (diffraction and reflectivity). After the evaluation of Ge content, the strain-sensitive process of rolling up tubes from the flat layers is used and combined with X-ray diffraction to provide a concise scenario of the strain evolution along an in-growth oxidation series, pointing out the conditions that maximize strain, as well as its fading, as the Ge content rises.

Self-assembled molecules exhibit key functionalities for the development of novel technologies and applications. Usually, molecular systems that exhibit long-range positional order are employed in their pure form. In this work, we observe that a combination of an amphiphilic molecule, tetradecyl-phosphonic acid (TPA), and a diphosphonate molecule with a similar length, 1,10-decyldiphosphonic acid (DdPA), induces distinct long-range ordered structures depending on the relative volume of dilutions used for drop coating. Starting from 0.2 mM diluted ethanol solutions of each molecule and combining both in distinct proportions that range from 1:20 to 20:1, we were able to identify periodic molecular structures that consist of three and five molecules of TPA and DdPA arranged in symmetries and were retrieved by synchrotron X-ray diffraction. The possibility of deterministically building up such structures can be further developed to induce surface and bulk behaviors that better suit applications such as coatings for chemical and biological studies, as well as to engineer layers used in organic electronic applications.