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    On the Impact of Strained PECVD Nitride Layers on Oxide Precipitate Nucleation in Silicon
    (Pennington, NJ : ECS, 2019) Kissinger, G.; Kot, D.; Costina, I.; Lisker, M.
    PECVD nitride layers with different layer stress ranging from about 315 MPa to −1735 MPa were deposited on silicon wafers with similar concentration of interstitial oxygen. After a thermal treatment consisting of nucleation at 650°C for 4 h or 8 h followed annealing 780°C 3 h + 1000°C 16 h in nitrogen, the profiles of the oxide precipitate density were investigated. The binding states of hydrogen in the layers was investigated by FTIR. There is a clear effect of the layer stress on oxide precipitate nucleation. The higher the compressive layer stress is the higher is a BMD peak below the front surface. If the nitride layer is removed after the nucleation anneal the BMD peak below the front surface becomes lower. It is possible to model the BMD peak below the surface by vacancy in-diffusion from the silicon/nitride interface. With increasing duration of the nucleation anneal the vacancy injection from the silicon/nitride interface decreases and with increasing compressive layer stress it increases. © The Author(s) 2019.
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    On the Impact of Strained PECVD Oxide Layers on Oxide Precipitation in Silicon
    (Pennington, NJ : ECS, 2019) Kissinger, G.; Kot, D.; Lisker, M.; Sattler, A.
    PECVD oxide layers with different layer stress ranging from about −305.2 MPa to 39.9 MPa were deposited on silicon wafers with similar concentration of interstitial oxygen. After a thermal treatment consisting of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and furnace annealing 780°C 3 h + 1000°C 16 h in nitrogen the profiles of the oxide precipitate density were investigated. Supersaturations of self-interstitials as function of layer stress were determined by adjusting modelling results to measured depth profiles of bulk microdefects. The self-interstitial supersaturation generated by RTA at 1250°C and 1175°C at the silicon/oxide interface is increasing linearly with increasing layer stress. Values for self-interstitial supersaturation determined on deposited oxide layers after RTA at 1250°C and 1175°C are very similar to values published for RTO by Sudo et al. An RTA at 1175°C with a PECVD oxide on top of the wafer is a method to effectively suppress oxygen precipitation in silicon wafers. Nucleation anneals carried out at 650°C for 4 h and 8 h did not show any effect of PECVD oxide layers on oxide precipitate nucleation. © The Author(s) 2019.
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    Strength of bacterial adhesion on nanostructured surfaces quantified by substrate morphometry
    (London : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019) Spengler, C.; Nolle, F.; Mischo, J.; Faidt, T.; Grandthyll, S.; Thewes, N.; Koch, M.; Müller, F.; Bischoff, M.; Klatt, M.A.; Jacobs, K.
    Microbial adhesion and the subsequent formation of resilient biofilms at surfaces are decisively influenced by substrate properties, such as the topography. To date, studies that quantitatively link surface topography and bacterial adhesion are scarce, as both are not straightforward to quantify. To fill this gap, surface morphometry combined with single-cell force spectroscopy was performed on surfaces with irregular topographies on the nano-scale. As surfaces, hydrophobized silicon wafers were used that were etched to exhibit surface structures in the same size range as the bacterial cell wall molecules. The surface structures were characterized by a detailed morphometric analysis based on Minkowski functionals revealing both qualitatively similar features and quantitatively different extensions. We find that as the size of the nanostructures increases, the adhesion forces decrease in a way that can be quantified by the area of the surface that is available for the tethering of cell wall molecules. In addition, we observe a bactericidal effect, which is more pronounced on substrates with taller structures but does not influence adhesion. Our results can be used for a targeted development of 3D-structured materials for/against bio-adhesion. Moreover, the morphometric analysis can serve as a future gold standard for characterizing a broad spectrum of material structures. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019.