Reduction and Increase in Thermal Conductivity of Si Irradiated with Ga+ via Focused Ion Beam.

Focused ion beam (FIB) technology has become a valuable tool for the microelectronics industry and for the fabrication and preparation of samples at the micro/nanoscale. Its effects on the thermal transport properties of Si, however, are not well understood nor do experimental data exist. This paper presents a carefully designed set of experiments for the determination of the thermal conductivity of Si samples irradiated by Ga+ FIB. Generally, the thermal conductivity decreases with increasing ion dose. For doses of >1016 (Ga+/cm2), a reversal of the trend was observed due to recrystallization of Si. This report provides insight on the thermal transport considerations relevant to engineering of Si nanostructures and interfaces fabricated or prepared by FIB.

Thermal conductivity and nanocrystalline structure of platinum deposited by focused ion beam.

Pt deposited by focused ion beam (FIB) is a common material used for attachment of nanosamples, repair of integrated circuits, and synthesis of nanostructures. Despite its common use little information is available on its thermal properties. In this work, Pt deposited by FIB is characterized thermally, structurally, and chemically. Its thermal conductivity is found to be substantially lower than the bulk value of Pt, 7.2 W m(-1) K(-1) versus 71.6 W m(-1) K(-1) at room temperature. The low thermal conductivity is attributed to the nanostructure of the material and its chemical composition. Pt deposited by FIB is shown, via aberration corrected TEM, to be a segregated mix of nanocrystalline Pt and amorphous C with Ga and O impurities. Ga impurities mainly reside in the Pt while O is homogeneously distributed throughout. The Ga impurity, small grain size of the Pt, and the amorphous carbon between grains are the cause for the low thermal conductivity of this material. Since Pt deposited by FIB is a common material for affixing samples, this information can be used to assess systematic errors in thermal characterization of different nanosamples. This application is also demonstrated by thermal characterization of two carbon nanofibers and a correction using the reported thermal properties of the Pt deposited by FIB.

Observation of assembly of fluorescent Si nanoparticles under the influence of electric current.

A silicon substrate patterned by an oxide is immersed in an alcohol solution of low-doped 1-nm Si nanoparticles. Reverse biasing draws particles to the substrate, mostly along the conducting current paths. Scanning electron and fluorescence microscopy show a tree-like network on the substrate. Avoidance of closed loops and preference for an angle of branching of 90 degrees-120 degrees are observed. The building block of the tree network is not individual particles but spherical particle aggregates approximately 150 nm in diameter.

Singular thin viscous sheet.

The evolution of a thin viscous layer is usually smooth. Here we conduct an experiment where the layer adopts a singular shape. Using the analogy between the flow of a viscous liquid and the deformation of an elastic solid, the theoretical analysis predicts a conical shape for the sheet and is in quantitative agreement with the experiment.

Rippling instability of a collapsing bubble

When a bubble of air rises to the top of a highly viscous liquid, it forms a dome-shaped protuberance on the free surface. Unlike a soap bubble, it bursts so slowly as to collapse under its own weight simultaneously, and folds into a wavy structure. This rippling effect occurs for both elastic and viscous sheets, and a theory for its onset is formulated. The growth of the corrugation is governed by the competition between gravitational and bending (shearing) forces and is exhibited for a range of densities, stiffnesses (viscosities), and sizes-a result that arises less from dynamics than from geometry, suggesting a wide validity. A quantitative expression for the number of ripples is presented, together with experimental results that support the theoretical predictions.

Crescent singularities and stress focusing in a buckled thin sheet: mechanics of developable cones.

The localization of deformation is a simple consequence of the fact that bending a thin sheet is energetically cheaper than stretching it. In this paper we investigate conical singularities that appear on a crumpled sheet and called developable cones (d cones). We found that for a sample of a finite thickness the singularity is never pointlike but has a spatial extension in the form of a crescent. A further deformation of the d cone leads to a transition to a plastic deformation equivalent to a decrease in the singularity size characterized from curvature and profile analysis. The crescent radius of curvature is measured both at small deformations and at large deformations. It is found that, during the buckling process, the curvature of the crescent exhibits two different scalings versus the deformation. From the cone profile, we measured the reaction force of the plate to deformation; and from force measurements, the energy that is necessary to create the singularity is characterized.