Amorphous SiO2 transforms into crystalline Si by 200 kV electron irradiation at ambient temperature. The transformation of amorphous SiO2 to crystalline Si takes place in two steps; the first step involves transformation of amorphous SiO2 into amorphous Si, while the second step is the crystallization of amorphous Si. Valence electron ionization is determined as the key factor for the transformation from SiO2 to amorphous Si; beam heating and knock-on displacement are responsible for the transformation from amorphous Si to crystalline Si. The energy threshold for the crystallization of amorphous Si is determined to be 150.2 kV.

We have successfully fabricated nano-dots containing tungsten or gold from metal-organic gas sources by electron beam-induced deposition in an ultrahigh vacuum transmission electron microscope. The size of the dots can be controlled by changing the time for irradiation and the partial pressure of the precursor. The smallest particle size fabricated from W(CO) 6 is ∼1.5 nm in diameter, which is close to the theoretical resolution limit.

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We have investigated linear and nonlinear optical properties of surface immobilized gold nanospheres (SIGNs) above a gold surface with a gap distance of a few nanometers. The nanogap was supported by amine or merocyanine terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiolates. A large second-harmonic generation (SHG) was observed from the SIGN systems at localized surface plasmon resonance condition. The maximum enhancement factor of SHG intensity was found to be 3 x 10(5) for the SIGN system of nanospheres 100 nm in diameter with a gap distance of 0.8 nm. The corresponding susceptibility was estimated to be chi((2))=750 pmV (1.8 x 10(-6) esu). In the SIGN system supported with the merocyanine terminated SAMs, the SHG response was also resonant to the merocyanine in the nanogap. It was found that the SHG response of the SIGN systems is strongly frequency dependent. This leads us to conclude that the large chi((2)) is caused by enhanced electric fields at the localized surface plasmon resonance condition and is not due to an increase of the surface susceptibility following from the presence of the gold nanospheres. The observed SHG was consistent with the theoretical calculations involving Fresnel correction factors, based on the quasistatic approximation.

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