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Now showing 1 - 10 of 18
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    The influence of Mg doping on the nucleation of self-induced GaN nanowires
    (New York : American Institute of Physics, 2012) Limbach, F.; Caterino, R.; Gotschke, T.; Stoica, T.; Calarco, R.; Geelhaar, L.; Riechert, H.
    GaN nanowires were grown without any catalyst by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Under supply of Mg, nanowire nucleation is faster, the areal density of wires increases to a higher value, and nanowire coalescence is more pronounced than without Mg. During nanowire nucleation the Ga desorption was monitored insitu by line-of-sight quadrupolemass spectrometry for various substrate temperatures. Nucleation energies of 4.0±0.3 eV and 3.2±0.3 eV without and with Mg supply were deduced, respectively. This effect has to be taken into account for the fabrication of nanowire devices and could be employed to tune the NW areal density.
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    Oxygen-deficient oxide growth by subliming the oxide source material: The cause of silicide formation in rare earth oxides on silicon
    (Washington, DC : ACS, 2013) Bierwagen, O.; Proessdorf, A.; Niehle, M.; Grosse, F.; Trampert, A.; Klingsporn, M.
    The fundamental issue of oxygen stoichiometry in oxide thin film growth by subliming the source oxide is investigated by varying the additionally supplied oxygen during molecular beam epitaxy of RE2O3 (RE = Gd, La, Lu) thin films on Si(111). Supplying additional oxygen throughout the entire growth was found to prevent the formation of rare earth silicides observed in films grown without an oxygen source. Postgrowth vacuum annealing of oxygen stoichiometric films did not lead to silicide formation thereby confirming that the silicides do not form as a result of an interface instability at growth temperature in vacuum but rather due to an oxygen deficiency in the source vapor. The average oxygen deficiency of the rare-earth containing species in the source vapor was quantified by the 18O tracer technique and correlated with that of the source material, which gradually decomposed during sublimation. Therefore, any oxide growth by sublimation of the oxide source material requires additional oxygen to realize oxygen stoichiometric films.
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    Structural Transitions in Ge2Sb2Te5 Phase Change Memory Thin Films Induced by Nanosecond UV Optical Pulses
    (Basel : MDPI, 2020) Behrens, Mario; Lotnyk, Andriy; Bryja, Hagen; Gerlach, Jürgen W.; Rauschenbach, Bernd
    Ge-Sb-Te-based phase change memory alloys have recently attracted a lot of attention due to their promising applications in the fields of photonics, non-volatile data storage, and neuromorphic computing. Of particular interest is the understanding of the structural changes and underlying mechanisms induced by short optical pulses. This work reports on structural changes induced by single nanosecond UV laser pulses in amorphous and epitaxial Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) thin films. The phase changes within the thin films are studied by a combined approach using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The results reveal different phase transitions such as crystalline-to-amorphous phase changes, interface assisted crystallization of the cubic GST phase and structural transformations within crystalline phases. In particular, it is found that crystalline interfaces serve as crystallization templates for epitaxial formation of metastable cubic GST phase upon phase transitions. By varying the laser fluence, GST thin films consisting of multiple phases and different amorphous to crystalline volume ratios can be achieved in this approach, offering a possibility of multilevel data storage and realization of memory devices with very low resistance drift. In addition, this work demonstrates amorphization and crystallization of GST thin films by using only one UV laser with one single pulse duration and one wavelength. Overall, the presented results offer new perspectives on switching pathways in Ge-Sb-Te-based materials and show the potential of epitaxial Ge-Sb-Te thin films for applications in advanced phase change memory concepts.
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    Phase transition and anomalous low temperature ferromagnetic phase in Pr 0.6Sr 0.4MnO 3 single crystals
    (New York, NY : Springer Science + Business Media B.V., 2009) Rößler, S.; Harikrishnan, S.; Naveen Kumar, C.M.; Bhat, H.L.; Elizabeth, S.; Rößler, U.K.; Steglich, F.; Wirth, S.
    We report on the magnetic and electrical properties of Pr 0.6Sr 0.4MnO 3 single crystals. This compound undergoes a continuous paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition with a Curie temperature T C301 K and a first-order structural transition at T S64 K. At T S, the magnetic susceptibility exhibits an abrupt jump, and a corresponding small hump is seen in the resistivity. The critical behavior of the static magnetization and the temperature dependence of the resistivity are consistent with the behavior expected for a nearly isotropic ferromagnet with short-range exchange belonging to the Heisenberg universality class. The magnetization (M-H) curves below T S are anomalous in that the virgin curve lies outside the subsequent M-H loops. The hysteretic structural transition at T S as well as the irreversible magnetization processes below T S can be explained by phase separation between a high-temperature orthorhombic and a low-temperature monoclinic ferromagnetic phase.
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    Dynamical Phase Transitions for Flows on Finite Graphs
    (New York, NY [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V., 2020) Gabrielli, Davide; Renger, D.R. Michiel
    We study the time-averaged flow in a model of particles that randomly hop on a finite directed graph. In the limit as the number of particles and the time window go to infinity but the graph remains finite, the large-deviation rate functional of the average flow is given by a variational formulation involving paths of the density and flow. We give sufficient conditions under which the large deviations of a given time averaged flow is determined by paths that are constant in time. We then consider a class of models on a discrete ring for which it is possible to show that a better strategy is obtained producing a time-dependent path. This phenomenon, called a dynamical phase transition, is known to occur for some particle systems in the hydrodynamic scaling limit, which is thus extended to the setting of a finite graph.
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    Large superplastic strain in non-modulated epitaxial Ni-Mn-Ga films
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2010) Yeduru, S.R.; Backen, A.; Fahler, S.; Schultz, L.; Kohl, M.
    The phase transformation and superplastic characteristics of free-standing epitaxial Ni-Mn-Ga stripes are reported. The stripes are prepared by micromachining a 1 μm thick Ni-Mn-Ga film sputter-deposited on a single crystalline MgO (100) substrate using optical lithography and a Chromium-based sacrificial layer technology. The stripes are oriented at angles of 0 and 45 degrees with respect to the Ni-Mn-Ga unit cell. Electrical resistance versus temperature characteristics reveal a reversible thermally induced phase transformation between 169°C and 191°C. Stress-strain measurements are performed with the stress applied along the [100]Ni-Mn-Ga as well as [110]Ni-Mn-Ga direction. Depending on the orientation, the twinning stress ranges between 25 and 30 MPa, respectively. For the [100] Ni-Mn-Ga and [110]Ni-Mn-Ga directions, superplastic behaviour with a strain plateau of 12 % and 4% are observed, respectively, indicating stress-induced reorientation of non-modulated martensite variants.
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    Modelling and simulation of flame cutting for steel plates with solid phases and melting
    (Berlin ; Heidelberg : Springer, 2020) Arenas, Manuel J.; Hömberg, Dietmar; Lasarzik, Robert; Mikkonen, Pertti; Petzold, Thomas
    The goal of this work is to describe in detail a quasi-stationary state model which can be used to deeply understand the distribution of the heat in a steel plate and the changes in the solid phases of the steel and into liquid phase during the flame cutting process. We use a 3D-model similar to previous works from Thiébaud (J. Mater. Process. Technol. 214(2):304–310, 2014) and expand it to consider phases changes, in particular, austenite formation and melting of material. Experimental data is used to validate the model and study its capabilities. Parameters defining the shape of the volumetric heat source and the power density are calibrated to achieve good agreement with temperature measurements. Similarities and differences with other models from literature are discussed. © 2020, The Author(s).
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    Nonequilibrium phase transitions in finite arrays of globally coupled Stratonovich models: Strong coupling limit
    (College Park, MD : Institute of Physics Publishing, 2009) Senf, F.; Altrock, P.M.; Behn, U.
    A finite array of N globally coupled Stratonovich models exhibits a continuous nonequilibrium phase transition. In the limit of strong coupling, there is a clear separation of timescales of centre of mass and relative coordinates. The latter relax very fast to zero and the array behaves as a single entity described by the centre of mass coordinate. We compute analytically the stationary probability distribution and the moments of the centre of mass coordinate. The scaling behaviour of the moments near the critical value of the control parameter ac(N) is determined. We identify a crossover from linear to square root scaling with increasing distance from ac. The crossover point approaches ac in the limit N →∞ which reproduces previous results for infinite arrays. Our results are obtained in both the Fokker-Planck and the Langevin approach and are corroborated by numerical simulations. For a general class of models we show that the transition manifold in the parameter space depends on N and is determined by the scaling behaviour near a fixed point of the stochastic flow. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.
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    Ferroelectric switching in epitaxial GeTe films
    (New York : American Institute of Physics, 2014) Kolobov, A.V.; Kim, D.J.; Giussani, A.; Fons, P.; Tominaga, J.; Calarco, R.; Gruverman, A.
    In this paper, using a resonance-enhanced piezoresponse force microscopy approach supported by density functional theory computer simulations, we have demonstrated the ferroelectric switching in epitaxial GeTe films. It has been shown that in films with thickness on the order of several nanometers reversible reorientation of polarization occurs due to swapping of the shorter and longer Ge-Te bonds in the interior of the material. It is also hinted that for ultra thin films consisting of just several atomic layers weakly bonded to the substrate, ferroelectric switching may proceed through exchange of Ge and Te planes within individual GeTe layers.
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    Suitability of binary oxides for molecular-beam epitaxy source materials: A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publ., 2020) Adkison, Kate M.; Shang, Shun-Li; Bocklund, Brandon J.; Klimm, Detlef; Schlom, Darrell G.; Liu, Zi-Kui
    We have conducted a comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of the volatility of 128 binary oxides to evaluate their suitability as source materials for oxide molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). 16 solid or liquid oxides are identified that evaporate nearly congruently from stable oxide sources to gas species: As2O3, B2O3, BaO, MoO3, OsO4, P2O5, PbO, PuO2, Rb2O, Re2O7, Sb2O3, SeO2, SnO, ThO2, Tl2O, and WO3. An additional 24 oxides could provide molecular beams with dominant gas species of CeO, Cs2O, DyO, ErO, Ga2O, GdO, GeO, HfO, HoO, In2O, LaO, LuO, NdO, PmO, PrO, PuO, ScO, SiO, SmO, TbO, Te2O2, U2O6, VO2, and YO2. The present findings are in close accord with available experimental results in the literature. For example, As2O3, B2O3, BaO, MoO3, PbO, Sb2O3, and WO3 are the only oxides in the ideal category that have been used in MBE. The remaining oxides deemed ideal for MBE awaiting experimental verification. We also consider two-phase mixtures as a route to achieve the desired congruent evaporation characteristic of an ideal MBE source. These include (Ga2O3 + Ga) to produce a molecular beam of Ga2O(g), (GeO2 + Ge) to produce GeO(g), (SiO2 + Si) to produce SiO(g), (SnO2 + Sn) to produce SnO(g), etc.; these suboxide sources enable suboxide MBE. Our analysis provides the vapor pressures of the gas species over the condensed phases of 128 binary oxides, which may be either solid or liquid depending on the melting temperature. © 2020 Author(s).