Effect of extended defects on phonon confinement in polycrystalline Si and Ge films

We present Raman spectroscopy of the polycrystalline Si and Ge films deposited by molecular beam deposition on a dielectric substrate. The Raman study has been made using lasers with different wavelengths. Structural properties of the poly-films have been studied by XRD and TEM. The Raman spectra are characterized by appearance of the additional wide peaks around 500 cm–1 and 290 cm–1 in the main vibrational bands of TO(c-Si) and TO(c-Ge) phonons, respectively. It is shown that these peaks correspond to scattering in grain boundary area. For the poly–Si films, both a downward shift and an asymmetrical broadening of the vibrational band of TO(c-Si) near 520 cm–1 are observed, whereas there is only a symmetric broadening in the spectra of poly-Ge. The Raman line shape has been modeled within the framework of the phonon confinement theory taking into account the sizes of coherent scattering domains obtained using XRD. The model includes a symmetrical band broadening observed in polycrystalline films. It is shown that confinement of phonon propagation might be in the poly–Si films. The phonon dispersion and the density of phonon states have been simulated using density functional theory. It has been found that phonon confinement relates to grain boundaries rather than other extended defects such as twins (multiple twins, twin boundaries), the appearance of which does not lead to significant changes in phonon dispersion and density of phonon states

Hall Effect Anisotropy in the Paramagnetic Phase of Ho_0.8Lu_0.2B₁₂ Induced by Dynamic Charge Stripes

A detailed study of charge transport in the paramagnetic phase of the cage-cluster dodecaboride Ho0.8Lu0.2B12 with an instability both of the fcc lattice (cooperative Jahn–Teller effect) and the electronic structure (dynamic charge stripes) was carried out at temperatures 1.9–300 K in magnetic fields up to 80 kOe. Four mono-domain single crystals of Ho0.8Lu0.2B12 samples with different crystal axis orientation were investigated in order to establish the singularities of Hall effect, which develop due to (i) the electronic phase separation (stripes) and (ii) formation of the disordered cage-glass state below T*~60 K. It was demonstrated that a considerable intrinsic anisotropic positive component ρanxy appears at low temperatures in addition to the ordinary negative Hall resistivity contribution in magnetic fields above 40 kOe applied along the [001] and [110] axes. A relation between anomalous components of the resistivity tensor ρanxy~ρanxx1.7 was found for H||[001] below T*~60 K, and a power law ρanxy~ρanxx0.83 for the orientation H||[110] at temperatures T S~15 K. It is argued that below characteristic temperature TS~15 K the anomalous odd ρanxy(T) and even ρanxx(T) parts of the resistivity tensor may be interpreted in terms of formation of long chains in the filamentary structure of fluctuating charges (stripes). We assume that these ρanxy(H||[001]) and ρanxy(H||[110]) components represent the intrinsic (Berry phase contribution) and extrinsic (skew scattering) mechanism, respectively. Apart from them, an additional ferromagnetic contribution to both isotropic and anisotropic components in the Hall signal was registered and attributed to the effect of magnetic polarization of 5d states (ferromagnetic nano-domains) in the conduction band of Ho0.8Lu0.2B12