Enhancement of the crystalline Ge film growth by inductively coupled plasma-assisted pulsed DC sputtering.

The effect of pulsed DC sputtering on the crystalline growth of Ge thin film was investigated. Ge thin films were deposited on the glass substrates using ICP-assisted pulsed DC sputtering. The Ge target was sputtered using asymmetric bipolar pulsed DC sputtering system with and without assistance of ICP source. The pulse frequency of 200 Hz and the pulse on time of 500 µsec (duty cycle = 10%) were kept during sputtering process. Crystal structures were studied from X-ray diffraction. The X-ray diffraction patterns clearly showed crystalline film structures. The Ge thin films with randomly oriented crystalline were obtained using pulsed DC sputtering without ICP, whereas they had well aligned (220) orientation crystalline using ICP source. Moreover, the combination of ICP assistance and pulsed DC sputtering enhanced the growth of crystalline Ge thin films without hydrogen and metal by in situ deposition. The structure and lattice of the films were studied from TEM images. The cross-sectional TEM images revealed the deposited Ge films with columnar structure.

White light emission from polystyrene under pulsed ultra violet laser irradiation.

This paper reports for the first time the luminescent property of polystyrene (PS), produced by pulsed ultra violet laser irradiation. We have discovered that, in air, ultra-violet (UV) irradiated PS nanospheres emit bright white light with the dominant peak at 510 nm, while in vacuum they emit in the near-blue region. From the comparison of PS nanospheres irradiated in vacuum and air, we suggest that the white luminescence is due to the formation of carbonyl groups on the surface of PS by photochemical oxidation. Our results potentially offer a new route and strategy for white light sources.

Retention characteristics of Schottky barrier tunneling transistor-nano floating gate memory with various side walls.

At present, the nano floating gate memory (NFGM) device has shown a great promise as a ultra-dense, high-endurance memory device for low-power applications. As the size of the NFGM reduced, the short channel effect became one of the critical issues in the base Field Effect Transistor (FET). Schottky barrier tunneling transistor (SBTT) can improve the controllability of the short channel effect. In this work, we studied nano floating gate memory based on the SBTT. Erbium silicide was employed instead of the conventional heavily doped S/D. The NFGM device based on the SBTT used Si nanocrystals as charge storages. The subthreshold slope and the threshold voltage of the SBTT-NFGM were 90 mV/dec. and 0.2 V, respectively. The memory window appeared about 4 V after the applied write/erase bias at +/- 11 V for 500 ms. The write/erase speeds of the memory device were 50 ms and 200 ms at +/- 13 V, respectively. We also analyzed the retention characteristics of the Schottky barrier tunneling transistor nonvolatile floating gate memory according to the various side walls.