Medium-energy ion-scattering study of strained holmium silicide nanoislands grown on silicon (100)

Abstract

We have used medium-energy ion scattering (MEIS) to quantitatively analyse the structure of holmium silicide islands grown on the Si(100) surface. Structure fitting to the experimental data unambiguously shows that the tetragonal silicide phase is present and not the hexagonal phase which is associated with the growth of nanowires at submonolayer coverages. Islands formed with a lower holmium coverage of 3 ML are also shown to be tetragonal which suggests that the hexagonal structure is not a low coverage precursor to the growth of the tetragonal phase. MEIS simulations of large nanoislands which include the effects of lateral strain relief have been performed and these compare well with the experimental data.

Diffusion kinetics and evolution of self-assembled nickel germanide nanorings on germanised Si (100)

“…Ni nanorings have been reported by Zhu et al 2 On the contrary, it has been reported that, metal silicides provide a better alternative over pure metal interconnect. [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] Metal germanide [26][27][28] gives much more prospective than metal silicide, although both have almost similar properties, for its potential application in high speed devices. While nickel silicide nanostructures have been reported, [19][20][21][22] germanide nanostructures still remain unreported.…”

Synthesis and Growth Mechanism of Stable Prenucleated (≈0.8 nm Diameter) PbS Quantum Dots by Medium Energy Ion Scattering Spectroscopy

“…For this reason, MEIS, which entails the use of dozens or hundreds of keV accelerated H + , He + or Ne + ions, has been employed in the present work. MEIS has been successfully used for characterization of the shape, size, composition, stoichiometry and size distribution of various nanoparticles structures such as Pt-Rh [33], CdSe-ZnS [34], Au [35], InAs-GaAs [36] and Au/Pd core-shell nanoparticles due to its excellent depth resolution [37], MEIS measurements average the strain profile over about 10 8 dots [38], providing accurate information for quantum dots [38], nanoparticles [39,40] and nanoislands [41].…”

Recent advances in MEIS

“…With the development of TOF‐MEIS instrumentation that allows small spot analysis down to ~10 μm and minimizes the ion beam damage issue, applications of MEIS to nanoparticles have been extended to composition 3D profiling in nanostructured devices such as As dopant profiling in the fin field effect transistor (FinFET) and investigations of the initial nucleation mechanism of nanoclusters in the sub‐nm range . Strain depth profiling of MEIS on thin film interfaces has been extended to study nanomaterial systems such as quantum dots, nanoislands, and nanodisks. Profiling of substitutional or active As dopants in FinFET with MEIS will be one of the challenges in microelectronics.…”