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Chemical Nano-tomography of Self-assembled Ge-Si:Si(001) Islands from Quantitative High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Luciano Andrey Montoro
Affiliation:
lmontoro@lnls.br, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Av. Giuseppe Maximo Scolfaro, 10000, Campinas, 13083970, Brazil
Marina Leite
Affiliation:
msl@lnls.br, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Campinas, Brazil
Daniel Biggemann
Affiliation:
dbiggemann@entelnet.bo, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Campinas, Brazil
Fellipe Grillo Peternella
Affiliation:
fpeternella@lnls.br, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Campinas, Brazil
Kees Joost Batenburg
Affiliation:
Joost.batenburg@ua.ac.be, University of Antwerp, Vision Lab, Wilrijk, Belgium
Gilberto Medeiros-Ribeiro
Affiliation:
gmedeiros@lnls.br, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Campinas, Brazil
Antonio J. Ramirez
Affiliation:
ramirez@lnls.br, Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Campinas, Brazil
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Abstract

The knowledge of composition and strain with high spatial resolution is highly important for the understanding of the chemical and electronic properties of alloyed nanostructures. Several applications require a precise knowledge of both composition and strain, which can only be extracted by self-consistent methodologies. Here, we demonstrate the use of a quantitative high resolution transmission electron microscopy (QHRTEM) technique to obtain two-dimensional (2D) projected chemical maps of epitaxially grown Ge-Si:Si(001) islands, with high spatial resolution, at different crystallographic orientations. By a combination of these data with an iterative simulation, it was possible infer the three-dimensional (3D) chemical arrangement on the strained Ge-Si:Si(001) islands, showing a four-fold chemical distribution which follows the nanocrystal shape/symmetry. This methodology can be applied for a large variety of strained crystalline systems, such as nanowires, epitaxial islands, quantum dots and wells, and partially relaxed heterostructures.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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