NANOSTRUCTURE PATTERNING UNDER ENERGETIC PARTICLE BEAM IRRADIATION
- Regents of the University of Michigan
Energetic ion bombardment can lead to the development of complex and diverse nanostructures on or beneath the material surface through induced self-organization processes. These self-organized structures have received particular interest recently as promising candidates as simple, inexpensive, and large area patterns, whose optical, electronic and magnetic properties are different from those in the bulk materials [1-5]. Compared to the low mass efficiency production rate of lithographic methods, these self-organized approaches display new routes for the fabrication of nanostructures over large areas in a short processing time at the nanoscale, beyond the limits of lithography [1,4]. Although it is believed that surface nanostructure formation is based on the morphological instability of the sputtered surface, driven by a kinetic balance between roughening and smoothing actions [6,7], the fundamental mechanisms and experimental conditions for the formation of these nanostructures has still not been well established, the formation of the 3-D naopatterns beneath the irradiated surface especially needs more exploration. During the last funding period, we have focused our efforts on irradiation-induced nanostructures in a broad range of materials. These structures have been studied primarily through in situ electron microscopy during electron or ion irradiation. In particular, we have performed studies on 3-D void/bubble lattices (in metals and CaF2), embedded sponge-like porous structure with uniform nanofibers in irradiated semiconductors (Ge, GaSb, and InSb), 2-D highly ordered pattern of nanodroplets (on the surface of GaAs), hexagonally ordered nanoholes (on the surface of Ge), and 1-D highly ordered ripple and periodic arrays (of Cu nanoparticles) [3,8-11]. The amazing common feature in those nanopatterns is the uniformity of the size of nanoelements (nanoripples, nanodots, nanovoids or nanofibers) and the distance separating them. Our research focuses on the understanding of fundamental scientific basis for the irradiation-induced self-organization processes. The fundamental physical mechanisms underlying ordered pattern formation, which include defect production and migration, ion sputtering, redeposition, viscous flow and diffusion, are investigated through a combination of modeling and in situ and ex-situ observations [3,9,11]. In addition, these nanostructured materials exhibit considerable improvement of optical properties [9,12,13]. For example, patterned Ge with a hexagonally ordered, honeycomb-like structure of nanoscale holes possesses a high surface area and a considerably blue-shifted energy gap [9], and oxidation of ordered Ga droplets shows noticeable enhancement of optical transmission [12]. This research has addressed nanopattern formation in a variety of materials under ion bombardment and provided a fundamental understanding of the dynamic mechanisms involved. In addition, have also stared to systematically investigate pattern formation under ion irradiation for more systems with varied experimental conditions and computation, including the collaboration with Dr. Veena Tikare of Sandia National Laboratory with a hybrid computation method at the ending this grant. A more detailed relationship between nanostructure formation and experimental conditions will be revealed with our continued efforts.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-02ER46005
- OSTI ID:
- 1086597
- Report Number(s):
- Final Technical report
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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