Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

Platinum nanoparticles were deposited onto Highly Oriented Pyrolitic Graphite (HOPG) substrate by laser ablating a Pt target at room temperature into a vacuum chamber. By varying the helium background pressure (from 10-5 to 0.5 Torr) and the target-to-substrate distance (from 3 to 6 cm), we were able to explore a large range of kinetic energies (i.e., from ∼4 to ∼130 eV/atom) of the Pt ablated neutrals species impinging on the HOPG substrates. Thus, the effect of the kinetic energy on the size and the surface density of Pt nanoparticles has been investigated ex-situ by means of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The pulsed laser deposition technique is shown to produce Pt nanoparticles (of which diameter in the 1 – 4 nm range) with a relatively narrow size distribution. While the size of the PLD Pt nanoparticles is shown to be mainly influenced by the number of laser pulses, their shape is found to be more sensitive to kinetic energy of the Pt ablated species.

We have studied by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) the effect of step bunching on Ge/Si(111) epitaxy. We have verified that self-organization of Ge islands is greatly influenced by “step bunching” which arises from the flash-annealing procedure used to reconstruct the Si surface. Two different growth regimes arise: initially islands nucleate and evolve only at steps, up to complete ripening; subsequently the same evolution is observed on flat areas of the sample. The average distance between islands and steps is nearly constant, originating a single row of equally spaced islands, followed by other rows of islands in between. The exploitation of this phenomenon, which is governed by the surface diffusion length of Ge on Si (estimated from our data) and by the terrace width, constitutes one possible path to achieve self-organization of quantum dots.

We have studied by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) the effect of step bunching on Ge/Si(111) epitaxy. We have verified that self-organization of Ge islands is greatly influenced by “step bunching” which arises from the flash-annealing procedure used to reconstruct the Si surface. Two different growth regimes arise: initially islands nucleate and evolve only at steps, up to complete ripening; subsequently the same evolution is observed on flat areas of the sample. The average distance between islands and steps is nearly constant, originating a single row of equally spaced islands, followed by other rows of islands in between. The exploitation of this phenomenon, which is governed by the surface diffusion length of Ge on Si (estimated from our data) and by the terrace width, constitutes one possible path to achieve self-organization of quantum dots.

Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) in situ is used to study the evolution of Ge islands grown by Physical Vapor Deposition on Si(111) 7×7 reconstructed surfaces. Large 3D islands form on the Wetting Layer (WL), with average lateral dimension in the range 200 - 500 nm. The statistical distribution of the island shapes has been analyzed, showing that three types of shapes coexist under certain conditions: strained, partially relaxed and ripened (atoll-like) islands. We measured the contact angles of the island facets, and observed the depletion of the substrate around the ripened islands. These features are attributed to the misfit strain, which is partially relieved by interdiffusion of Si into the Ge layers.