Absence of boron aggregates in superconducting silicon confirmed by atom probe tomography

Superconducting boron-doped silicon films prepared by gas immersion laser doping (GILD) technique are analyzed by atom probe tomography. The resulting three-dimensional chemical composition reveals that boron atoms are incorporated into crystalline silicon in the atomic percent concentration range, well above their solubility limit, without creating clusters or precipitates at the atomic scale. The boron spatial distribution is found to be compatible with local density of states measurements performed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. These results, combined with the observations of very low impurity level and of a sharp two-dimensional interface between doped and undoped regions show, that the Si:B material obtained by GILD is a well-defined random substitutional alloy endowed with promising superconducting properties.Comment: 4 page

Subkelvin tunneling spectroscopy showing Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductivity in heavily boron-doped silicon epilayers

Scanning tunneling spectroscopies in the subKelvin temperature range were performed on superconducting Silicon epilayers doped with Boron in the atomic percent range. The resulting local differential conductance behaved as expected for a homogeneous superconductor, with an energy gap dispersion below +/- 10%. The spectral shape, the amplitude and temperature dependence of the superconductivity gap follow the BCS model, bringing further support to the hypothesis of a hole pairing mechanism mediated by phonons in the weak coupling limit.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Low temperature transition to a superconducting phase in boron-doped silicon films grown on (001)-oriented silicon wafers

We report on a detailed analysis of the superconducting properties of boron-doped silicon films grown along the 001 direction by Gas Immersion Laser Doping. The doping concentration cB has been varied up to approx. 10 at.% by increasing the number of laser shots to 500. No superconductivity could be observed down to 40mK for doping level below 2.5 at.%. The critical temperature Tc then increased steeply to reach 0.6K for cB = 8 at%. No hysteresis was found for the transitions in magnetic field, which is characteristic of a type II superconductor. The corresponding upper critical field Hc2(0) was on the order of 1000 G, much smaller than the value previously reported by Bustarret et al. in Nature (London) 444, 465 (2006).Comment: 4 pages including 4 figures, submitted to PRB-Rapid Communicatio

The Superconducting Transition in Boron Doped Silicon Films

International audienceWe report on a detailed analysis of the superconducting properties of boron-doped silicon films grown along the 001 direction by gas immersion laser doping. This technique is proved to be a powerful technique to dope silicon in the alloying range 2-10 at.% where superconductivity occurs. The superconducting transitions are sharp and well defined both in resistivity and magnetic susceptibility. The variation of Tc on the boron concentration is in contradiction with a classical exponential dependence on superconducting parameters. Electrical measurements were performed in magnetic field on the sample with cB = 8 at.% (400 laser shots) which has the highest Tc (0.6 K). No hysteresis was found for the transitions in magnetic field, which is characteristic of a type-II superconductor. The corresponding upper critical field was on the order of 1000 G at low temperatures, much smaller than the value previously reported. The temperature dependence of Hc2 is very well reproduced by the linearized Gorkov equations neglecting spin effects in the very dirty limit. These measurements in magnetic field allow an estimation of the electronic mean-free path, the coherence length, and the London penetration depth within a simple two-band free electron model

Thickness dependence of the superconducting critical temperature in heavily doped Si:B epilayers

International audienceWe report on the superconducting properties of a series of heavily doped Si:B epilayers grown by gas immersion laser doping with boron content (nB) ranging from ∼3 × 1020 cm−3 to ∼6 × 1021cm−3 and thickness (d) varying between ∼20 nm and ∼210 nm. We show that superconductivity is only observed for nB values exceeding a threshold value (nc,S ) which scales as nc,S ∝ 1/d. The critical temperature (Tc) then rapidly increases with nB, largely exceeding the theoretical values which can be estimated by introducing the electron-phonon coupling constant (λe-ph) deduced from ab initio calculations into the McMillan equation. Surprisingly Tc(nB,d) is fully determined by the boron dose (nB × d) and can be well approximated by a simple Tc(nB,d) ≈ Tc,0[1 − A/(nB.d)] law, with Tc,0 ∼ 750 mK and A ∼ 8(±1) × 1015 cm−2

Distributed electro-thermal model of IGBT chip – Application to top-metal ageing effects in short circuit conditions

International audienceA new distributed electro-thermal model has been developed in order to analyze electrical and thermal mappings of power devices during critical operations. The model is based on dividing power device into a vertical multilayer structure, with each layer discretized into multiple slab volumes. This model has been used to evaluate the effects of chip metallization ageing on temperature distributions and current sharing between cells within an IGBT chip during short-circuits operations. Dynamic latch-up failures during short-circuit operations has been investigated

Hydrogen incorporation, bonding and stability in nanocrystalline diamond films

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Sp3/sp2 character of the carbon and hydrogen configuration in micro- and nanocrystalline diamond

International audienceHot filament and microwave plasma CVD micro- nanocrystalline diamond films are analysed by visible and ultra-violet excitation source Raman spectroscopy. The sample grain size varies from 20 nm to 2 μm. The hydrogen concentration in samples is measured by SIMS and compared to the grain size, and to the ratio of sp2 carbon bonds determined by Raman spectroscopy from the 1332 cm− 1 diamond peak and the sp2 1550 cm− 1 G band. Hydrogen concentration appears to be proportional to the sp2 bonds ratio. The 3000 cm− 1 CHx stretching mode band intensity observed on the Raman spectra is decreasing with the G band intensity. Thermal annealing modifies the sp2 phase structure and concentration, as hydrogen outdiffuses

Determination of the phosphorus content in diamond using cathodoluminescence spectroscopy

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Nanoscale concentration and strain distribution in pseudomorphic films Si1−xGex/Si processed by pulsed laser induced epitaxy

International audienceWe report on the structural analysis of Si1−xGex pseudomorphic layers synthesized by pulsed laser induced epitaxy (PLIE) using a nanosecond excimer laser. We focus here on the local determination of strain and related Ge concentration. First, a Ge amorphous layer is predeposited on a Si substrate. Successive laser pulses induce the incorporation of Ge atoms in the molten substrate layer and lead to the synthesis of a graded Si1−xGex alloy over a depth which depends on the laser fluence. The Si1−xGex layers are coherently strained and free of defects. The in-depth Ge concentration distribution is investigated by RBS and HAADF STEM. The strain fields are specifically explored using the new dark-field electron holography (Holodark) technique, offering mapping of the full strain tensor in two dimensions with a high precision. Independently determined strain and Ge concentration distributions over a distance of 150 nm from the surface are found to be well consistent. An unexpected but reproducible depletion of Ge is evidenced inside the SiGe layer. This feature is shown to be related to the shape of the temporal characteristics of laser pulses. In particular, the second contribution, which occurs 32 ns later, is involved in a two-stage solidification process