The dynamics of laser-produced cavitation bubbles near a solid boundary and its dependence on the distance between bubble and wall are investigated experimentally. It is shown by means of high-speed photography with up to 1 million frames/s that jet and counterjet formation and the development of a ring vortex resulting from the jet flow are general features of the bubble dynamics near solid boundaries. The fluid velocity field in the vicinity of the cavitation bubble is determined with time-resolved particle image velocimetry. A comparison of path lines deduced from successive measurements shows good agreement with the results of numerical calculations by Kucera & Blake (1988). The pressure amplitude, the profile and the energy of the acoustic transients emitted during spherical bubble collapse and the collapse near a rigid boundary are measured with a hydrophone and an optical detection technique. Sound emission is the main damping mechanism in spherical bubble collapse, whereas it plays a minor part in the damping of aspherical collapse. The duration of the acoustic transients is 20-30 ns. The highest pressure amplitudes at the solid boundary have been found for bubbles attached to the boundary. The pressure inside the bubble and at the boundary reaches about 2.5 kbar when the maximum bubble radius is 3.5 mm. The results are discussed with respect to the mechanism of cavitation erosion.

We determine the detailed differences in geometry and band structure between wurtzite (Wz) and zinc blende (Zb) InAs nanowire (NW) surfaces using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and photoemission electron microscopy. By establishing unreconstructed and defect-free surface facets for both Wz and Zb, we can reliably measure differences between valence and conduction band edges, the local vacuum levels, and geometric relaxations to the few-millielectronvolt and few-picometer levels, respectively. Surface and bulk density functional theory calculations agree well with the experimental findings and are used to interpret the results, allowing us to obtain information on both surface and bulk electronic structure. We can thus exclude several previously proposed explanations for the observed differences in conductivity of Wz-Zb NW devices. Instead, fundamental structural differences at the atomic scale and nanoscale that we observed between NW surface facets can explain the device behavior.

Using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy we study the atomic scale geometry and electronic structure of GaAs nanowires exhibiting controlled axial stacking of wurtzite (Wz) and zinc blende (Zb) crystal segments. We find that the nonpolar low-index surfaces {110}, {101[overline]0}, and {112[overline]0} are unreconstructed, unpinned, and without states in the band gap region. Direct comparison between Wz and Zb GaAs reveal a type-II band alignment and a Wz GaAs band gap of 1.52 eV.

Thin high-κ oxide films on InAs, formed by atomic layer deposition, are the key to achieve high-speed metal-oxide-semiconductor devices. We have studied the native oxide and the interface between InAs and 2 nm thick Al2O3 or HfO2 layers using synchrotron x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Both films lead to a strong oxide reduction, obtaining less than 10% of the native As-oxides and between 10% and 50% of the native In-oxides, depending on the deposition temperature. The ratio of native In- to As-oxides is determined to be 2:1. The exact composition and the influence of different oxidation states and suboxides is discussed in detail.

Using plan-view and cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy, the shape and composition of InAs/GaAs quantum dots are investigated before and after capping by GaAs. During capping, the original pyramidally shaped quantum dots become truncated, resulting in a flat (001) top facet and steeper side facets. The InAs quantum dots are found to be intermixed at their top with GaAs due to material rearrangement. Since the bottom interface of quantum dots and wetting layer is always sharp, this intermixing occurs during capping and not during quantum dot growth. Considering strain energies, a model for the capping is presented