ABSTRACT
In periodic W/Be multilayers, thickness-dependent microstructural and phase modifications were investigated in W and Be layers. In X-ray diffraction, α-W was predominant for the ultrathin layer of W, while ß-W evolved along with the α-W phase for higher film thickness. For the thicker layers, the thermodynamically metastable ß-W vanished and a single well-defined preferably oriented stable α-W phase was observed. The lattice spacing revealed that these phases exist in the tensile stressed condition. With the increase in thickness of Be layers, the blueshift and narrow linewidth of the transverse optical (TO) phonon mode was observed in Raman scattering studies. However, the TO mode was redshifted and the linewidth was further narrowed consistently with an increase in the thermal annealing temperature of the multilayers. The investigation has quantified an increase in compressive strain and reduction of defects with an increase in thickness of the Be layers. However, for thermally annealed samples, the compressive strain in the Be layers was relaxed and crystalline quality was improved.
ABSTRACT
The phonon and plasmon excitations and electronic properties of interfaces of periodic W/Si and Si/W multilayer structures were investigated. The Boson band originated from quasilocal surface acoustic phonons for ultrathin Si layers, excited by Raman scattering. In confined Si layers, a small fraction of crystalline Si nanoclusters were embedded within a large volume fraction of amorphous Si (a-Si) nanoclusters. The size of the a-Si nanoclusters was smaller for the thinner Si layer in the periodic layers. The plasmon energy in the Si layer was blueshifted with a decrease in the thickness of this layer. This was explained by the size-dependent quantization of plasmon shift. The valence band spectra comprised a substantial fine structure, which is associated with the interaction of valence orbitals of the W and Si atoms at the interface boundaries. For thinner Si layers, the binding interaction of W5d and Si3p states leads to the splitting of the density of states near the Fermi level in the energy range of 1.5-5 eV. However, the energy splitting with two maxima was observed at 0.7 and 2.4 eV for thicker layers. Thus, the results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have indicated that the interface of W/Si multilayers consists of metal-enriched tungsten silicide. Both the atomic structure and the elemental composition of the silicide were modified with a change in the thickness of the Si layers. This novel investigation could be essential for designing nanomirrors with higher reflectivity.
ABSTRACT
Three AsxTe100-x films with different x and dissimilar average thickness are characterized mainly from one interference transmittance spectrum T(λ = 300 to 3000 nm) of such film on a substrate based on the advanced optimizing envelope method (AOEM). A simple dual transformation of T(λ) is proposed and used for increasing the accuracy of computation of its envelopes T+(λ) and T-(λ) accounting for the significant glass substrate absorption especially for λ > 2500 nm. The refractive index n(λ) of As40Te60 and As98Te2 films is determined with a relative error <0.30%. As far as we know, the As80Te20 film is the only one with anomalous dispersion and the thickest, with estimated = 1.1446 nm, ever characterized by an envelope method. It is also shown and explained why the extinction coefficient k(λ) of any of the three AsxTe100-x films is computed more accurately from the quantity Ti(λ) = [T+(λ)T-(λ)]0.5 compared to its commonly employed computation from T+(λ). The obtained results strengthen our conviction that the AOEM has a capacity for providing most accurate optical characterization of almost every dielectric or semiconductor film with > 300 nm on a substrate, compared to all the other methods for characterization of such films only from T(λ).
ABSTRACT
AsxTe100-x amorphous films of different chemical content were prepared by Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD). For the first time the optical properties of As-Te chalcogenide materials have been measured in UV-VIS-IR ranges (from 0.2 to 25µm) for a very wide range of chemical compositions (20-80at.% As). As-Te films have been tuned from 0.80 to 1.10eV. The IR results obtained have been juxtaposed with the Raman spectroscopy findings to establish the correlation between optical and structural properties of the materials developed. Reversible and irreversible changes in the phase composition of the As-Te films under annealing of the surface by laser irradiation have been demonstrated and studied. In order to determine the potential areas of application of the prepared As-Te films the thermal and photo sensitivity has been also investigated.
