Laser-induced optical changes in amorphous multilayers

It is shown that the well-known blue-shift of the fundamental absorption edge in as-deposited compositionally modulated amorphous Si/Ge and As6Se94/Se80Te20 multilayers (with periods of 4-8 nm) is further enhanced due to the thermal or laser-induced intermixing of adjacent layers. The laser-induced intermixing process, as supported by experiments and model calculations, can be attributed to both the local heating and photo-effects in As6Se94/Se80Te20 multilayers, while only the thermal effects were observed for Si/Ge multilayers. Structural transformations, based on this enhanced interdiffusion, provides good capability for spatially patterning optoelectronic devices and digital information recording

Kirkendall Effect on the Nanoscale

Kirkendall effect has been studied experimentally as well as theoretically for decades already. There are theoretical indications, that the Kirkendall effect must operate from the beginning of the diffusion process but there are practically no measurements on this short time and length scale. For that reason, diffusion on the nanometer scale was investigated experimentally in different binary systems in thin film geometry. We followed the diffusion process as well as the Kirkendall effect by different methods (TEM, SNMS and synchrotron X-ray waveguide technique). Investigations were performed in systems with complete solubility (Bi-Sb, Cu-Ni, Bi-Sb) as well as in systems forming intermetallic phase (Fe-Sb, Fe- Pd). It was found that with these methods the Kirkendall shift can be well followed on the nano-scale. In Fe-Sb system even the bifurcation of the Kirkendall plane was observed