Strain mapping at the nanoscale using precession electron diffraction in transmission electron microscope with off axis camera

International audiencePrecession electron diffraction is an efficient technique to measure strain in nanostructures by precessing the electron beam, while maintaining a few nanometre probe size. Here, we show that an advanced diffraction pattern treatment allows reproducible and precise strain measurements to be obtained using a default 512 x 512 DigiSTAR off-axis camera both in advanced or non-corrected transmission electron microscopes. This treatment consists in both projective geometry correction of diffraction pattern distortions and strain Delaunay triangulation based analysis. Precision in the strain measurement is improved and reached 2.7 x 10(-4) with a probe size approaching 4.2 nm in diameter. This method is applied to the study of the strain state in InGaAs quantum-well (QW) devices elaborated on Si substrate. Results show that the GaAs/Si mismatch does not induce in-plane strain fluctuations in the InGaAs QW region. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC

Dopant profiling in silicon nanowires measured by scanning capacitance microscopy

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Dopant profiling in silicon nanowires measured by scanning capacitance microscopy

Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) with axial doping junctions were synthesized via the Au-catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid growth method with the use of HCl. In this work, dopant profiling from three axially doped SiNWs with p-i, p-n and n-i-p junctions were investigated using both scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). It turns out that observed doping contrasts in SEM are also affected by the surface roughness and sample charging. In contrast, SCM allows us to delineate with sub-10 nm resolution the electrical junctions and provides a relative value of the doping concentration in each segment of the NW. SCM clearly evidences the expected doping regions within these SiNWs thanks to the addition of HCl during the growth that strongly prevents shell overgrowth. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

The synthesis and characterisation of ferromagnetic CaMn2O 4 nanowires

The synthesis of marokite CaMn2O4 nanowires using a hydrothermal method is reported. Transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction measurements show that the nanowires are polycrystalline in nature with diameters between 10 and 20 nm and lengths ranging from approximately 100 to 500 nm. Most interestingly, in contrast with the bulk material, magnetization measurements show that these nanowires exhibit ferromagnetic ordering with a Curie temperature (T) of approximately 40 K

Self-adapting denoising, alignment and reconstruction in electron tomography in materials science

An automatic procedure for electron tomography is presented. This procedure is adapted for specimens that can be fashioned into a needle-shaped sample and has been evaluated on inorganic samples. It consists of self-adapting denoising, automatic and accurate alignment including detection and correction of tilt axis, and 3D reconstruction. We propose the exploitation of a large amount of information of an electron tomography acquisition to achieve robust and automatic mixed Poisson–Gaussian noise parameter estimation and denoising using undecimated wavelet transforms. The alignment is made by mixing three techniques, namely (i) cross-correlations between neighboring projections, (ii) common line algorithm to get a precise shift correction in the direction of the tilt axis and (iii) intermediate reconstructions to precisely determine the tilt axis and shift correction in the direction perpendicular to that axis. Mixing alignment techniques turns out to be very efficient and fast. Significant improvements are highlighted in both simulations and real data reconstructions of porous silicon in high angle annular dark field mode and agglomerated silver nanoparticles in incoherent bright field mode. 3D reconstructions obtained with minimal user-intervention present fewer artefacts and less noise, which permits easier and more reliable segmentation and quantitative analysis. After careful sample preparation and data acquisition, the denoising procedure, alignment and reconstruction can be achieved within an hour for a 3D volume of about a hundred million voxels, which is a step toward a more routine use of electron tomograph

Direct Bonding Mechanism of ALD-Al2O3 Thin Films

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Chemical characterization of III–V heterostructures in 3D architecture

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