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    Topography evolution of germanium thin films synthesized by pulsed laser deposition
    (New York, NY : American Inst. of Physics, 2017) Schumacher, P.; Mayr, S.G.; Rauschenbach, B.
    Germanium thin films were deposited by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) onto single crystal Ge (100) and Si (100) substrates with a native oxide film on the surface. The topography of the surface was investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to evaluate the scaling behavior of the surface roughness of amorphous and polycrystalline Ge films grown on substrates with different roughnesses. Roughness evolution was interpreted within the framework of stochastic rate equations for thin film growth. Here the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation was used to describe the smoothening process. Additionally, a roughening regime was observed in which 3-dimensional growth occurred. Diffusion of the deposited Ge adatoms controlled the growth of the amorphous Ge thin films. The growth of polycrystalline thin Ge films was dominated by diffusion processes only in the initial stage of the growth.
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    Photoluminescence at room temperature of liquid-phase crystallized silicon on glass
    (New York, NY : American Inst. of Physics, 2016) Vetter, Michael; Schwuchow, Anka; Andrä, Gudrun
    The room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectrum due band-to-band recombination in an only 8 μm thick liquid-phase crystallized silicon on glass solar cell absorber is measured over 3 orders of magnitude with a thin 400 μm thick optical fiber directly coupled to the spectrometer. High PL signal is achieved by the possibility to capture the PL spectrum very near to the silicon surface. The spectra measured within microcrystals of the absorber present the same features as spectra of crystalline silicon wafers without showing defect luminescence indicating the high electronic material quality of the liquid-phase multi-crystalline layer after hydrogen plasma treatment.
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    High-performance giant magnetoresistive sensorics on flexible Si membranes
    (Melville, NY : American Inst. of Physics, 2015) Pérez, Nicolás; Melzer, Michael; Makarov, Denys; Ueberschär, Olaf; Ecke, Ramona; Schulz, Stefan E.; Schmidt, Oliver G.
    We fabricate high-performance giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensorics on Si wafers, which are subsequently thinned down to 100 μm or 50 μm to realize mechanically flexible sensing elements. The performance of the GMR sensors upon bending is determined by the thickness of the Si membrane. Thus, bending radii down to 15.5 mm and 6.8 mm are achieved for the devices on 100 μm and 50 μm Si supports, respectively. The GMR magnitude remains unchanged at the level of (15.3 ± 0.4)% independent of the support thickness and bending radius. However, a progressive broadening of the GMR curve is observed associated with the magnetostriction of the containing Ni81Fe19 alloy, which is induced by the tensile bending strain generated on the surface of the Si membrane. An effective magnetostriction value of λs = 1.7 × 10−6 is estimated for the GMR stack. Cyclic bending experiments showed excellent reproducibility of the GMR curves during 100 bending cycles.
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    A graphene-based hot electron transistor
    (Washington, DC : American Chemical Society, 2013) Vaziri, S.; Lupina, G.; Henkel, C.; Smith, A.D.; Östling, M.; Dabrowski, J.; Lippert, G.; Mehr, W.; Lemme, M.C.
    We experimentally demonstrate DC functionality of graphene-based hot electron transistors, which we call graphene base transistors (GBT). The fabrication scheme is potentially compatible with silicon technology and can be carried out at the wafer scale with standard silicon technology. The state of the GBTs can be switched by a potential applied to the transistor base, which is made of graphene. Transfer characteristics of the GBTs show ON/OFF current ratios exceeding 104.