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    Self-Assembly of Well-Separated AlN Nanowires Directly on Sputtered Metallic TiN Films
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2020) Azadmand, Mani; Auzelle, Thomas; Lähnemann, Jonas; Gao, Guanhui; Nicolai, Lars; Ramsteiner, Manfred; Trampert, Achim; Sanguinetti, Stefano; Brandt, Oliver; Geelhaar, Lutz
    Herein, the self-assembled formation of AlN nanowires (NWs) by molecular beam epitaxy on sputtered TiN films on sapphire is demonstrated. This choice of substrate allows growth at an exceptionally high temperature of 1180 °C. In contrast to previous reports, the NWs are well separated and do not suffer from pronounced coalescence. This achievement is explained by sufficient Al adatom diffusion on the substrate and the NW sidewalls. The high crystalline quality of the NWs is evidenced by the observation of near-band-edge emission in the cathodoluminescence spectrum. The key factor for the low NW coalescence is the TiN film, which spectroscopic ellipsometry and Raman spectroscopy indicate to be stoichiometric. Its metallic nature will be beneficial for optoelectronic devices using these NWs as the basis for (Al,Ga)N/AlN heterostructures emitting in the deep ultraviolet spectral range.
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    Electron Tomography of Pencil-Shaped GaN/(In,Ga)N Core-Shell Nanowires
    (New York, NY [u.a.] : Springer, 2019) Nicolai, Lars; Gačević, Žarko; Calleja, Enrique; Trampert, Achim
    The three-dimensional structure of GaN/(In,Ga)N core-shell nanowires with multi-faceted pencil-shaped apex is analyzed by electron tomography using high-angle annular dark-field mode in a scanning transmission electron microscope. Selective area growth on GaN-on-sapphire templates using a patterned mask is performed by molecular beam epitaxy to obtain ordered arrays of uniform nanowires. Our results of the tomographic reconstruction allow the detailed determination of the complex morphology of the inner (In,Ga)N multi-faceted shell structure and its deviation from the perfect hexagonal symmetry. The tomogram unambiguously identifies a dot-in-a-wire configuration at the nanowire apex including the exact shape and size, as well as the spatial distribution of its chemical composition. © 2019, The Author(s).
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    In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy of Disorder–Order Transition in Epitaxially Stabilized FeGe2
    (Washington, DC : Soc., 2021) Terker, Markus; Nicolai, Lars; Gaucher, Samuel; Herfort, Jens; Trampert, Achim
    Isothermal crystallization of amorphous Ge deposited on a cubic Fe3Si/GaAs(001) substrate is performed by in situ annealing within a transmission electron microscope. It was found that the formation of epitaxially aligned tetragonal FeGe2 is associated with a disorder–order phase transition mainly consisting of a rearrangement of the Fe/vacancy sublattice from a random distribution to alternating filled and empty layers. Additionally, atomically resolved high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy demonstrated that the vertical lattice spacing of the Ge sublattice reduces across vacancy layers, indicating that strain minimization plays a role in the phase transition process. Crystallization and ordering are both found to proceed layer-by-layer and with square-root-shaped kinetics with a smaller transition rate for the latter.
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    Application of electron tomography for comprehensive determination of III-V interface properties
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier Science, 2021) Nicolai, Lars; Biermann, Klaus; Trampert, Achim
    We present an electron tomography method for the comprehensive characterization of buried III-V semiconductor interfaces that is based on chemical-sensitive high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy. For this purpose, an (Al,Ga)As/GaAs multi-layer system grown by molecular beam epitaxy is used as a case study. Isoconcentration surfaces are exploited to obtain topographic height maps of 120 nm × 120 nm area, revealing the interface morphology. By applying the height-height correlation function, we are able to determine important interface properties like root mean square roughness and lateral correlation length of various interfaces of the (Al,Ga)As/GaAs system characterized by different Al concentrations. Height-difference maps based on isosurfaces corresponding to 30% and 70% of the total compositional difference at the interfaces are used to create topographic maps of the interface width and to calculate an average interface width. This methodology proves differences in the properties of direct and inverted interfaces and allows the observation of interfacial anisotropies. © 2021