Hydrogen refinement during solid phase epitaxy of buried amorphous silicon layers

The effect of hydrogen on the kinetics of solid phase epitaxy (SPE) have been studied in buried amorphous Si layers. The crystallization rate of the front amorphous/crystalline (a/c) interface is monitored with time resolved reflectivity.Secondary ion mass spectrometry(SIMS) is used to examine H implanted profiles at selected stages of the anneals. The H retardation of the SPE rate is determined up to a H concentration of 2.3×10²⁰ cm¯³ where the SPE rate decreases by 80%. Numerical simulations are performed to model the H diffusion, the moving a/c interfaces and the refinement of the H profile at these interfaces. Despite the high H concentration involved, a simple Fickian diffusion model results in good agreement with the SIMS data. The segregation coefficient is estimated to be 0.07 at 575 °C. A significant fraction of the H escapes from the a-Si layer during SPE especially once the two a/c interfaces meet which is signified by the lack of H-related voids after a subsequent high temperature anneal.This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council

Deep level transient spectroscopy study for the development of ion-implanted silicon field-effect transistors for spin-dependent transport

A deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) study of defects created by low-fluence, low-energy ion implantation for development of ion-implanted silicon field-effect transistors for spin-dependent transport experiments is presented. Standard annealing strategies are considered to activate the implanted dopants and repair the implantation damage in test metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors. Fixed oxide charge, interface trapped charge and the role of minority carriers in DLTS are investigated. A furnace anneal at 950 $\rm ^{o}$C was found to activate the dopants but did not repair the implantation damage as efficiently as a 1000 $\rm ^{o}$C rapid thermal anneal. No evidence of bulk traps was observed after either of these anneals. The ion- implanted spin-dependent transport device is shown to have expected characteristics using the processing strategy determined in this study.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Aged disability and community care in Australia: issues for southern Africa

Disability among the aged is an issue of growing importance to southern Africa as it is throughout the world. New methods and debates about disability and ageing are illustrated by a discussion of the Australian situation. First, trends in mortality and life expectancy are outlined, and the debate about the compression of mortality critically examined. Second, the same techniques of analysis are applied to disability and handicap rates derived from national surveys. The hypothesis of compression of morbidity or illness is also critically examined. Third, the impact on the community of disability is discussed, and expectations of life "free of community services" and ''free of institutionalization" are calculated. Finally, trends in health-risk factors and the contributions of various diseases to health expectations are outlined. Southern African countries are also part of the movement to measure quality-of-life years-not only quantity - and need to develop their population monitoring of disability and demands for community care. The development will facilitate policy planning to improve the management of community services provided for the elderly by families, the community and formal providers

A Robust Solution to the Super-Resolution Phase Problem in Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

From a set of images, each of poor resolution, recorded in a transmission microscope under many different incident angles of coherent illumination, it is possible to obtain wavelength-limited resolution even if there is a narrow aperture lying in the back-focal plane of the imaging lens. This is achieved by a deconvolution algorithm which retrieves the phase of the Fourier transform of the specimen. The method accounts for complex components in the transfer function of the lens, is not very sensitive to defocus and is remarkably resilient to noise. It may have important applications in overcoming the resolution limit in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), where such data are readily available

New results on heavy hadron spectroscopy with NRQCD

We present results for the spectrum of b-bbar bound states in the quenched approximation for three different values of the lattice spacing. Results for spin-independent splittings are shown to have good scaling behaviour; spin-dependent splittings are more sensitive to discretisation effects. We discuss what needs to be done to match the experimental spectrum.Comment: 3 pages, contribution to Lattice'9