The discrimination and classification of allergy-relevant pollen was studied for the first time by mid-infrared Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy together with unsupervised and supervised multivariate statistical methods. Pollen samples of 11 different taxa were collected, whose outdoor air concentration during the flowering time is typically measured by aerobiological monitoring networks. Unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis provided valuable information about the reproducibility of FT-IR spectra of the same taxon acquired either from one pollen grain in a 25 x 25 microm2 area or from a group of grains inside a 100 x 100 microm2 area. As regards the supervised learning method, best results were achieved using a K nearest neighbors classifier and the leave-one-out cross-validation procedure on the dataset composed of single pollen grain spectra (overall accuracy 84%). FT-IR microspectroscopy is therefore a reliable method for discrimination and classification of allergenic pollen. The limits of its practical application to the monitoring performed in the aerobiological stations were also discussed.

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The transient enhanced diffusion (TED) of As in silicon samples implanted at 35 keV with dose 5×1015 cm−2 has been investigated in the temperature range between 750 and 1030 °C by comparing experimental and simulated profiles. For temperatures higher than 900 °C the phenomenon is of modest entity and vanishes after a few seconds, whereas at lower temperatures diffusivity enhancements of some order of magnitude have been observed. The anomalous shift of the junction depth, evaluated at 2×1018 cm−3, is about 12 nm at 900 °C and increases up to 45 nm at 750 °C. It has been verified that the two are the contributions, that generate the interstitial excess responsible for the TED: (i) the implantation damage and (ii) the aggregation in clusters of the As atoms. From an experiment that allows us to separate the two contributions, we estimate that about one third of the TED observed in the first 20 min of annealing at 800 °C is due to the defects produced by clustering. The influence of clustering on the shape of the As profiles after diffusion at different temperatures is also discussed.

The diffusion of indium in silicon has been investigated in the temperature range of 800 to 1000 °C by using secondary ion mass spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Our data indicate that, for implants at 150 keV through a thin oxide layer (19 nm), the amount of dopant that leaves the silicon is only controlled by the flow of indium that reaches the surface, being both the segregation coefficient at the interface SiO2/Si and the indium diffusion coefficient in the oxide favorable to the out-diffusion. Comparison between experimental and simulated profiles has evidenced that, besides the expected transient enhanced diffusion occurring in the early phases of the annealing, a heavy loss of dopant by out-diffusion was associated with a high In diffusivity near the surface. Measurements of the hole concentration in uniformly doped silicon on insulator samples performed in the temperature range of 700 to 1100 °C indicate that indium solubility is equal or greater than 1.8×1018 cm−3; this value is higher than those previously proposed in literature.

Electrical activation and redistribution of 500 eV boron implants in preamorphized silicon after nonmelt laser annealing at 1150°C and isochronal rapid thermal postannealing are reported. Under the thermal conditions used for a nonmelt laser at 1150°C, a substantial residue of end-of-range defects remained after one laser scan but these were mainly dissolved within ten scans. The authors find dramatic boron deactivation and transient enhanced diffusion after postannealing the one-scan samples, but very little in the five-and ten-scan samples. The results show that end-of-range defect removal during nonmelt laser annealing is an achievable method for the stabilization of highly activated boron profiles in preamorphized silicon. © 2006 American Institute of Physics. ͓DOI: 10.1063/1.2385215͔The continued downscaling of complementary metaloxide-semiconductor devices requires ultrashallow and abrupt source/drain extension regions with a low sheet resistance.1 Among the other processes nonmelt laser annealing has gained attention as a means of achieving these requirements by its short process time and high annealing temperature, and hence low thermal budget, resulting in high dopant solubility.2-5 A problem exists with creating highly active profiles when boron is implanted in conjunction with a preamorphizing germanium implant; deactivation occurs during postactivation thermal processes. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] This deactivation is thought to be driven by the release of silicon interstitials from end-of-range ͑EOR͒ defects that evolve through nonconservative Ostwald ripening during annealing. 13 The interstitials flow towards the surface and decorate the boron profile, producing boron interstitial clusters. [14][15][16][17] In this letter, multiple laser scan annealing at 1150°C followed by isochronal rapid thermal postannealing at lower temperatures is used to investigate the role of end-of-range defects in the redistribution and deactivation of ultrashallow B profiles in preamorphized and nonmelt laser-annealed silicon.N-type ͑100͒ Czochralski-silicon wafers were preamorphized with 5 keV Ge + to a dose of 1 ϫ 10 15 cm −2 producing a surface amorphous layer to a depth of ϳ15 nm. 500 eV B + was implanted into the amorphous layer to a dose of 1 ϫ 10 15 cm −2 . Both implants were made using an Applied Materials Quantum X implanter. The wafers were exposed to a scanning diode laser source operated under nonmelting conditions, which was used to anneal three strips across the wafers, corresponding to one, five, or ten scans at a temperature of 1150°C. By using multiple laser scans to anneal the wafer, it allows a study of defect evolution as a function of increasing the thermal budget. The amorphous layer regrew by solid phase epitaxial regrowth during the annealing. Samples were taken from these strips and annealed in dry N 2 for 60 s at temperatures ranging from 700 to 1000°C using a Process Products Corporation rapid thermal annealing system operating with a 50°C/s heating ramp rate. The van der Pauw technique was use...

Hydrogen ͑or deuterium͒ incorporation in dilute nitride semiconductors modifies dramatically the electronic and structural properties of the crystal through the creation of nitrogen-hydrogen complexes. In this work, we investigate how the formation and dissociation of such complexes rule the diffusion of deuterium in GaAs 1−x N x . The concentration depth profile of deuterium is determined by secondary ion mass spectrometry under a wide range of experimental conditions that comprise different N concentrations ͑x = 0.09%, 0.40%, 0.70%, and 1.5%͒ and D irradiation temperatures ͑T D = 200, 250, 300 and 350°C͒. The experimental data are successfully reproduced by a diffusion model in the presence of strong D trapping. In particular, the deuterium diffusion and capture rate coefficients are determined, and a minimum decay length of the deuterium forefront is found at low T D ͑Ͻ250°C͒ and high x ͑Ͼ0.7%͒. These parameters set the experimental conditions within which a nanostructuring of the physical properties of GaAs 1−x N x is attainable.

Various amounts of a paraffinic wax were dispersed by melt mixing in an ethylene/propylene diene monomers (EPDM) rubber matrix. The resulting compounds were then vulcanized to obtain shape-stabilized rubbery phase change materials for thermal energy storage. The addition of the paraffinic wax induced a retardation in the vulcanization kinetics of the EPDM matrix. Calorimetric measurements evidenced how the homogenous distribution of the wax domains within the rubber, confirmed by electron microscopy observations, allowed for retaining the melting enthalpy of the neat paraffinic wax even at elevated concentration. The thermal energy storage and release capabilities of the investigated compounds were maintained even after various thermal cycles. The incorporation of polyethylene wax had a positive effect (increasing proportionally to its content) on the mechanical properties of the EPDM matrix, as documented from both the dynamical and the quasi-static tensile tests.

In this study, the effects of various types of commercial graphene nanoplatelets (XG Sciences xGnP M5, C300, C500, and C750) on the thermal, electromagnetic shielding (EMI SE), electrical and mechanical behavior of an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) copolymer matrix were investigated. The selected nanofillers were characterized and compared in term of surface area, different oxygen content, dimension and density (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and helium pycnometry). Graphene nanoplatelets were dispersed in ABS by direct melt compounding at 2, 4, and 8 wt%. Melt flow index (MFI) values almost linearly decreased with all the type of xGnPs, especially with the highest surface area nanofiller (C750). Moreover, EMI SE of neat ABS was improved from 20.7 dB to 22.5 dB (increase more than 3 times) for xGnP (C300, C500, and C750) and to 26.2 dB (increase about 9 times) for xGnP-M5, in agreement with proportional reduction of electrical resistivity. xGnP-M5 also resulted in being most effective in enhancing the tensile modulus which improved up to 64%, while a maximum increment of about 20% was obtained with the others xGnP nanoparticles. However, yield stress slightly decreased for xGnP-M5 (about 29%) and remained fairly constant for others nanofillers. Halpin-Tsai model used to predict the tensile modulus of the nanocomposites suggested that graphene nanoplatelets were randomly oriented in the ABS matrix in a three-dimensional (3D) manner. POLYM. COMPOS.,