Rutherford backscattering analysis of porous thin TiO2 films

Abstract

The additional energy spread due to sample porosity was implemented in the SIM-NRA simulation code, version 6.60 and higher. Deviations of the path length and energy loss distributions from the ones expected from a Poisson distribution of the number of traversed pores are taken into account. These deviations are due to the interaction of pores at higher pore concentrations by overlap or blocking. The skewnesses of the energy distributions are approximated by two-piece normal distributions with identical first three moments. Propagation of porosity-induced energy spread in thick layers is taken into account. Calculated results are compared to experimental data obtained with thin TiO 2 mesoporous films measured by Rutherford backscattering (RBS),transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atmospheric poroellipsometry.

Analytical simulation of RBS spectra of nanowire samples

“…Mayer et al showed [5] that for high density of spherical inclusions, non-Gaussian distributions are more appropriate. A similar argument can be made for columnar inclusions, and therefore the model implemented in NDF is valid for low densities.…”

“…In the presence of 2D and 3D structures, including inclusions, lateral heterogeneity, and surface and interface roughness, broad beam RBS measures an average of all the structures present in the area of the beam spot. This has been successfully utilised to make quantitative studies of roughness [1][2][3], inclusions [4,5], and even quantum dots [6] with RBS.…”

Ion Beam Analysis: A Century of Exploiting the Electronic and Nuclear Structure of the Atom for Materials Characterisation

“…The algorithm of Stoquert & Szörenyi [193] allows the calculation of the effect of precipitates (density variation) on the spectra. DataFurnace [48] implements this algorithm and SIMNRA [194], implements a more accurate comparable algorithm. On the other hand, DataFurnace implements EBS resonances more correctly than SIMNRA (see Fig.6 and [47], and see the Intercomparison [171] XVIII The noun is spectrum; the adjective is spectral.…”

Improved physics in SIMNRA 7

“…The physics basis, however, remained unchanged. New physics was implemented in version 6.10 and higher and was partly described in a number of publications [21,22,23,24], but these versions never became publicly available. SIMNRA 7 summarises all improvements of the simulation physics accumulated during the last years.…”