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Epitaxy - Science topic

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How does the substrate atom hold the sample atoms on the film?
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Main question:
If you look at the basic structures fcc and hcp, you find that fcc(111) and hcp(001) are both maximum density packed surface structures with triangles. Therefore these two facets match with each other and you can do epitaxy there. Please be aware that, since fcc has an abcabc stacking and hcp just ababab, an fcc-derived layer provides one additional "structure variable" about the stacking direction, so you can expect epitaxial growth without any texture issues of hcp(001) on fcc(111), but if you try it the other way round, you can expect the fcc layer to stack both abcabc and cbacba (symmetry-equivalent to a 60° or 180° rotated domain), so if you check the texture with an XRD pole figure, you can expect twice as many spots as on a single crystal.
Secondary question:
The adatoms can be bound to the substrate by any known kind of bond, be it van der Waals, covalent, ionic, metallic or quite often a mix of them. That's not a question of the crystal structure but more a question of what the specifice atoms prefer when they react with each other.
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How small should the lattice constant mismatch be when epitaxy of a material?
and in case of A+B -> C, is C the material whose lattice constant must match that of the substrate? Did I understand this correctly?
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Dear Jun Park ,
Information below should be helpful:
In epitaxy, the lattice constant mismatch between two materials plays a crucial role in determining the quality of the resulting crystal structure. Let’s explore this further:
  1. Defect-Free Epitaxial Growth: When the lattice constants of two materials are nearly identical, defect-free epitaxial growth occurs. In this scenario, one crystal lattice grows over another seamlessly. For a small lattice mismatch (usually less than 0.1%), the growth occurs with an approximate match of the lattice sites in the interface region of the two lattices. This small mismatch allows for a nearly perfect alignment of the crystal planes, resulting in high-quality epitaxial layers.
  2. Strain and Dislocations: In epitaxy, lattice mismatch introduces strain between the epitaxial layer and the substrate. For small lattice mismatches (typically less than 3%), a pseudo-morphic growth occurs initially. During this phase, the epilayer endures lattice distortion and strain accumulation to maintain crystalline quality. Once the epilayer reaches a critical thickness, it tends to recover its own lattice constant and release the stored strain by forming dislocations. In contrast, for large lattice mismatches, misfit dislocations immediately occur at the heterointerface to accommodate the strain induced by the mismatch. As a result, the crystalline quality of the hetero-epilayer is not as satisfactory as that of homoepitaxial layers2.
Hence, a small lattice constant mismatch is desirable for achieving high-quality epitaxial growth, while larger mismatches can lead to dislocations and reduced crystalline quality. Researchers and engineers carefully consider these factors when designing epitaxial structures for various applications.
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Epitaxial thin film, thin film substrate
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Thank you Prof. Jürgen Weippert for mentioning the possible points.
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I synthesized 6H-SiC (bulk) pellet and took temperature dependent Raman measurement of that. Now I want to take temperature dependent Raman measurement of pellet of nanocomposite of Epitaxial Graphene-6H SiC pellet. What kind of Raman spectrum change I can expect in pellet of nanocomposite of Epitaxial Graphene-6H SiC pellet with respect to 6H-SiC pellet? All relevant answers and suggestions are appreciated!
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A change in temperature, for any kind of study, implies a change in the phonon modes. In Raman spectroscopy, an increase of the temperature always induces a shift of the Raman bands to lower frequencies (see DOI: 10.1038/srep32236). This affact is attributed to thermal expansion and anharmonic effects of phonon processes
Best regards,
Elhoucine
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I have just started to grow thin films via DC magnetron sputtering. I want to grow epitaxial thin films of SnTe.
I am currently optimising the growth by varying the conditions.
But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to optimise to!
What should the XRD/GIXRD pattern indicate if one film is more epitaxial than the other?
What other characterisation techniques can I use for quantifying epitaxy?
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Well, epitaxy means that the grown film has a structure which is predefined by the substrate. Therefore, you XRD reflexes in the "most epitaxial" case should correspond to exactly one in-plane orientation, otherwise you have multi-domain or twinned growth. EPSD would also be a method to check that, but when you already have XRD and there is no differently oriented phase, you already know you're fine.
There are also other criteria like thickness uniformity or a low defect&unwanted dopant density, but these are general coating parameters and not epitaxy-specific.
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Hello. I wonder how can the monocrystalline silicon be grown on a SiO2 substrate? Normally, polysilicon is supposed to grow on SiO2 substrates due to crystal lattice mismatch but apparently the process of growing monocrystalline silicon on an insulator is used in industry.
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Thanks. Though it seems that any oxidation operation is a dead end.
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Why superconducting thin films needs to grow epitaxially?
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If anyone has a guide or special article on how to theoretically calculate IV and bandgap in graded-gap layers, please share with me? Thank you very much in advance for this!
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Dear Jurabek Muzaffar o'g'li Abdiev,
Here below is some auxiliary information:
Staircase band gap Si1ÀxGex ÕSi photodetectors Zhiyun Lo,a) Ruolian Jiang, Youdou Zheng,b) Lan Zang, Zhizhong Chen, Shunming Zhu, Xuemei Cheng, and Xiabing Liu
Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China ~Received 20 October 1999; accepted for publication 19 May 2000!
We fabricated Si12xGex /Si photodetectors by using a staircase band gap Si12xGex /Si structure. These devices exhibit a high optical response with a peak responsive wavelength at 0.96 mm and a responsivity of 27.8 A/W at 25 V bias. Excellent electrical characteristics evidenced by good diode rectification are also demonstrated. The dark current density is 0.1 pA/mm2 at 22 V bias, and the breakdown voltage is 227 V. The high response is explained as the result of a staircase band gap by theoretical analysis. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. @S0003-6951~00!04528-9#
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As we know, heteroepitaxy is an interesting topic in the field of semiconductor material fabrication by CVD method. For diamond heteroepitaxy on Ir substrate, we know no related results about heteroepitaxial nucleation are reported without the bias enhanced stage. It means some specific method is needs though the diamond heteroepitaxy on Ir substrate is possible from a theoretical point of view. So what factor decides whether one material can be heteroepitaxially grown on a substrate?
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Len Leonid Mizrah Thank you for your generous share. Your considerate suggestions brings me a lot of ideas. In fact, heteroepitaxial diamond growth and even single crystal growth is not a technical problem for me; however, it is an important task for me to understand why epitaxy can occur. Thanks again.
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In epitaxial growth film, the lattice from the substrate and the deposited film match to each other at the interface. In parallel beam XRD, the d-spacing that is sensed is the spacing of the atomic planes parallel to the substrate interface. However, the XRD measurements of d-spacing for both the substrate and an epitaxial film appear very close. Why is this almost always the case?
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For the best application of epitaxial thin film, ideally zero lattice mismatch among thin film and substrate is necessary.
Otherwise, gradually strain energy is developed at the thin film/substrate interface and ends up with formation of defects viz. dislocation.
Engineering of control over lattice mismatch is one of the most challenging task !
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I have been told that the carrier mobility of epitaxially grown InP decreases as the film thickness is decreasing, However, I could not find this statement anywhere. (The film thickness is about 300 nm)
I believe carrier mobility is a property of a material that is related to the doping concentration, crystal structure (defect and impurities), and temperature.
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I totally agree with you
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In this paper (DOI: 10.1002/anie.200704788 ), the authors impregnated rutile TiO2 particles with a solution of titanium tetraisopropoxide in 2-propanol (the weight ratio of anatase phase to rutile phase in the parent solution 5 wt%) and
subsequently treated for 8 h at 423 K in the presence of a flow of wet
nitrogen to hydrolyze the titanium isopropoxide. After that they calcined the system at 400 C and obtained anatase- decorated rutile particles.
I just try to figure out how did they obtain epitaxial(Figure 3 in the paper) growth of anatase(!) on rutile although the obvious epitaxial stabilization from the rutile particles must encourage the transformation amorphous TiO2- rutile TiO2. I believe that the answer is in braces and that the precursor's structure encourage transformation of titanium tetraisopropoxide to the anatase phase. However, I am confused that before the calcination at 400 C the TiO2 phase was amorphous.
So, could anyone explain this to me?
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The nanoparticles on the surface have an unfinished crystal lattice. If the synthesis conditions (temperature, pressure) favor the formation of another allotropic modification, then it appears.
If you are interested in details write a letter to Pugachevsky. He knows this problem.
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I know the lattice mismatch requirements for the epitaxial growth of thin films. However, do we have materials that can be grown epitaxially despite large lattice mismatch?
Is there any method or way it can be applied universally?
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for growing epitaxial films on need a single crystal substrate
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I am working with ZnO NANOWIRES which has prefered orientation on 002 planes. I've been doing Rietveld refinement of X-ray data using MAUD and I have read that for epitaxial ZnO, one can use the standard functions in MUAD and change some parameters ( phi, omega,... etc.). Well, whatever changes I make it makes the fitting worse. Can anyone help? what should I do to fit the highest peak in ZnO NANOWIRES in MAUD?
Notes/
I am uploading the cif. file and an example of my XRD result.
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MAUD is not a very appreciated software for Rietveld refinement. For beginners or for basic profile fitting, it works well; but if you want to fit multiphase materials, complex structures, preferred orientations, strained materials, magnetic and nanomaterials, non-stoichiometric compounds etc; you might go through problems for precise fitting. In fact, high impact journals and renowned journals of physics prefer FULLPROF more.
I'll personally suggest FULLPROF, it is a bit harder, but it is the most powerful software, which will offer you 20-30 parameters for finest refinement.
There are a number of tutorials present in youtube as well, you can learn it by a week.
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Let's suppose I have an STO substrate and I have deposited a thin film of another material and it is highly oriented and STO as well as my material both form are cubic.
  • To better understand the quality of the thin films I want to perform RSM. Kindly let me know how is RSM performed experimentally. How are asymmetric planes of substrate and thin-film probed in asymmetric RSM?
  • How are details such as mosaicity, curvature, lattice parameters, strain and dislocations obtained from the experimental data?
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Hi,guys,
I have obtained epitaxial NiO(100) film on Pt(100)-covered MgO(100) substrate by magnetron sputtering. The attached is its 2theta-omega XRD pattern. One reviewer comments that " The peak Pt(200) seems show Laue oscillations" and ask me "to fit these oscillations ". I know little about "Laue oscillations in XRD pattern". It refers to those symmetrical weak peaks on the left and right of strong Pt(200) peak? If it is so, how to analyze and fit them?  Is there any appropriate article or book, that can tell about the analysis of the Laue oscillations?
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It is just a plain sample with n-type substrate and p type epitaxial layer on it. I prepared MOS device and tried to measure it but it did not work. For n type semiconductor it was working.
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Just a working protocol in fabricating a device:
You have to assess every processing step and judge if satisfy the requirement for the device or not
- You can start the following process if the current process fail to perform as required.
-You have to be knowledgeable in semiconductors and electron devised in addition to their technology.
-One of the main precaution is the to avoid contamination absolutely
- You have sufficient measuring methods and instruments
Best wishes
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We like to develope high quality 2-inch GaAs/Ge/Si (100) epitaxial substrates .
using the HW-CVD technique at 300◦C and
the MOCVD method was used to grow a 1μm GaAs layer on a Ge
buffer.
How we can determinate and controle the TDD ?
what equipements you suggest for that ?
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The quality of the epitaxial layer is determined by the crystallographic defects contained it. As the crystallographic defects increase the quality will be deteriorated. The tolerance to the crystallographic defects is dictated by the application. As the mismatch between layers deposited layer increases, the greater will be the crystallographic defects. Also the deposition temperature and the rate of deposition affects the crysatllographic defects.TH inclusion of contamination on the initial substrate affects much the formation of defects.
One of the major defect is the dislocation, dislocation line and stacking faults.
You need to delineate them by the suitable etching and counting them by an optical or electron microscope.
There are books in the epithelial growth and fault formation and detection in the web.
Epitaxial growth is a complicated process needing elaboration both in theory and practice.
Best wishes
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I am trying to create a hetero-junction between GaAs and Si devices, but as you know there is a huge lattice mismatch between these two materials and thus ordinary hetero-epitaxial methods are not applicable. is there any method or buffer layers available to solve this problem?
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I think you can use Ge instead of silicon. It matches GaAs to a great extent according to the paper in the link:
As a proposal you can dope silicon with germanium heavily such that you can reduce the matching between silicon and GaAs.
Either you can use GaP or AlP instead of Ga As. This solution is extracted from the figure in the paper of the link:
Band gap and lattice constant for various III–V and group-IV material alloys. 
Best wishes
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Initially, the thin metallic films of copper (nm) were vapor-deposited on single crystal NaCl substrate at an epitaxial temperature of 200-degree Celsius at a pressure of 1e-6 torr. These thin films were transferred to Cu-TEM Grit (dia. 3 mm) and then observed in diffraction mode under TEM. Several individual crystallites within a single grain interfered in the diffraction pattern. To annihilate these individual crystallites, the samples were then vacuum annealed at 200-degree Celsius for 15 min and 30 min respectively in the pressure of 1e-6 Torr. But, the problem I faced is that whenever the samples were observed after vacuum annealing, the film gets disintegrated into several parts. I carried out this process nearly 20 times. I am still facing the problem. I am attaching some of the optical micrographs which shows the disintegration of thin metallic films of Cu on TEM Grit. Please give me some suggestions what are the possible reasons for the same and how to get rid of this problem?. I will be highly thankful to you.
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Hi Alaa, the problem is not associated whether it is copper grid or nickel grid. It may be associated with the process. I am still getting the better Contrast with Cu grid in TEM. Here the problem is disintegration of the film while vacuum annealing on Cu grid. Go with the explanation of the Krishnan sir. Hope it will sounds good for you. Thanks for your response.
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Why molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is not called atomic beam epitaxy and how it differs from sputtering in growth sense?
Can one grow sample in sputtering instead of MBE without changing any growth? Is so then why MBE is needed?
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I agree with the other responses. I'll add that the word epitaxy indicates the objective of crystal growth versus simple deposition. The goal is to maintain the underlying crystal structure of the substrate and have it continue through the various MBE grown layers even as the material layers change. Thus, the various layers of material must have the same crystalline structure and similar lattice constant as the underlying substrate. If two layers with a large difference in lattice constant are desired, then transition layers might be used. The advantages of MBE include the crystal purity and ability to control film thickness to the monolayer. MBE layers can be made so thin that quantum mechanical effects can be engineered into a material. Since the crystal structure must closely match, there is a fundamental limitation to the available materials for a given substrate or material system. MBE is also slow, so it requires an ultra-high vacuum environment.
Sputtering involves dislodging molecules from a sputtering target using a high-energy source beam. The goal is a homogeneous film. Sputtering is not epitaxial - there is no attempt at maintaining the crystalline structure of the film or matching it with the substrate. The film is deposited not grown. For this reason, there are fewer fundamental limitations on the type of materials that can be sputtered on a given substrate. Sputtering is also faster than MBE, so it does not require the same high vacuum levels. Since the films a largely amorphous, sputtering offers the advantage of tailoring the density by changing the deposition parameters. The refractive index of a sputtered film, for example, may be tailored. Sputtering is also capable of creating very dense films compared with other thin film deposition techniques.
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I got some AFM phase image pf epitaxial graphene at tapping mode, but there are some contrast inversion in AFM phase image. It`s my first time using AFM, I`m so confused.
Image 1 has some phase inversion which color is black.
Image 2 of which annealing temperature is higher, has no phase inversion in terrace( brighter area in terrace).
But the contrast of edge site is the same.
Is it possible that specific phase inversed?
If possible, what is the reason?
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More information is needed to answer your question. What is the phase scale? Is it in attractive or repulsive regime? Such phase contrast may be due to switching between attractive and repulsive regimes. Check this video lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Sr9PHL_oU&t=0s&list=PLtkeUZItwHK78uGpH76_hhsehADDWnKQB&index=12
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I know that G/2D ratio can be used for confirming graphene layer thickness. But is it also valid at Epitaxial graphene? I saw some letter about Epitaxial graphene, but in letter I saw, they always confirm graphene thickness using FWHM.
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I guess XRD would be good choice and you can also confirm it with AFM. Please see this paper.
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Could you recommend the supplier for small volume of 2", 3" and 4" Si-on-Si epitaxial wafers?
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Are both decent for small quantities and have fairly wide selection.
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I want to grow these two materials in multilayers
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The most important property for the epitaxial growth is the lattice matching between the substrate and the deposited material. Mathing means complete coincidence between the atomic arrangement at the interface of the film and substrate. This condition can be realized easily in homoepitaxy. In heteroepitaxy of two different material the lattice mismatch must be limited to a small percentage deviation while keeping the thickness of the epitaxial film under some critical thickness otherwise dislocations begins to appear in the deposited film. For more information please follow: users.wfu.edu/ucerkb/Nan242/L12-Epitaxy.pdf
Best wishes
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I have a problem with my experiment.
Even though, there is a graphene but sometimes I can`t get raman peak of graphene.
Here is my experiment data.
Blue has a 2D peak of graphene but red doesn`t have.
(Blue: 3mw 60s, red:3mw, 180s)
Also, Red is longer time than blue, but SiC peak is much smaller than Blue. It is very strange.
It`s my first raman experiment and this instrument is not mine.
So, I don`t know what is the problem.
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Hi,
Try to set laser power to 10%. Also after acquiriy the data, perform a despike and smoothing. Also make sure your stage is not moving and you are well focused in the sample. Another thing, increase the data accumulation for every data point. Use 25 to 30 accumulation for each data point.
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Hello,
I am searching information on fabrication process of silicon carbide based power devices and I found that epitaxy in such devices is an important step. That's why I am asking about the growth rate of the epitaxial layer.
Thank you.
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Dear Amine,
welcome,
The epitaxial growth rate depends on deposition temperature and the transport rate of the reacting gases to the wafer surface. For a given temperature there a maximum rate of deposition other wise the grown layer may contain many defects and ultimately becomes polycrystalline.
In addition to the paper brought by Daniela please see the thesis in the link: https://www.mobt3ath.com/uplode/book/book-2978.pdf
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ideal condition to deposit epitaxial film of AZO, are there parameter that must be adhere to when using the PLD technique
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Dear Anyanwu,
Epitaxy means to grow oxide layer on the substrate in crystalline form.
This implies that both the grown layer and the substrate must be crystallographically matched. If the film and substrate materials are the same this will be homoepitay other wise it will be heteroepitaxy.
I assume that you have homo epitaxy.
There will be important parameters for the epitaxial growth:
- the substrate temperature. As the temperature increases, the grown film will tend to be single crystal.
- The second important factor if the growth or deposition rate. As the deposition rate increases, the deposited film will tend to be poly crystalline.
So, the deposition rate must be as low as possible to give the molecules chance to order themselves in a crystallographic form.
- Th e last important factor the surface of the substrate must be very clean and free from any contamination to ease the crystallographic building process.
To adjust the evaporation rate by the LASER beam please refer to the link:
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Dear all,
I deposited CrN film using different conditions. I observed a strong texturation along (111) direction (already reported in numerous publication), but a large variation of the films density (RBS measurement) and the bandgap, which is quiet unexpected (in a extreme case: a epitaxial film should normaly present similar bandgap and density than a polycristalline film, isn't it?)
Does anyone have paper on the relation between the RBS density and/or the texturation coefficient and/or the bandgap of film?
Thank you,
Regards,
Emile HAYE
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Dear Daniela,
Thank you for your answers. The substrate is glass. Unfortunately, the films are too thin to get an accurate methods of weight measurement. There is no epitaxy at all, just a preferential orientation along 111 direction, but the film are polycristalline.
My question are:
1. Is there relation between the density of a film and its texturation?
2. Is the bandgap of a film similar for a textured or polycristalline film?
3. Is the bandgap dependent on the texturation level?
If you have any paper related to this subject, could you give me some reference?
Thank you and best regards ,
Emile HAYE
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We've looked at an epitaxial film of GaN on a Si substrate using real time 2D Bragg XRD Microscopy (2D XRD rocking curve analysis). This specimen also had intermediate "buffer" layers of AlxGa1-xN and AlN. The XRD rocking curve Bragg profiles were examined at various topographic locations. The (0002)s reflection was utilized. The vicinity of the GaN (0002)s reflection was probed in reciprocal space using the ω-2ϴ scan mode to acquire the Bragg profiles.
We need some help! We're on the verge of a solution. Check out this data set and analyses for a GaN-AlxGa(1-x)N-AlN-Si sample wafer. I have the 3D XRD rocking curve data collected using a commonly available lab based XRD instrument below 2kW. I have the relative intensities for five distinct Bragg peaks around the GaN (0002)s reflection.
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SNR to COD relationship for the above data set at location "800" on topograph.
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We are planning to procure some Silicon Carbide wafers with doped SiC epitaxial films on them (homo-epitaxy) from CREE Inc. (presently Wolfspeed). It so happened that CREE products had a long delivery time (28-32 weeks). It seems a number of institutions are buying form them and that is the reason for this queue. I as therefore wondering if there is an alternative source of these wafers which can supply with a shorter delivery time.
Appreciating any help adn thanks in advance.
Sincerely
Sudipto
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Hi all,
I am working on GaN-based device fabrication. I am growing the GaN thin films under different growth conditions using molecular beam epitaxy. I am interested in calculating the defect density in my films. Can anyone help me on how to calculate the defect density?
Thanks in advance.
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You can calculate the density of dislocations by X-ray diffraction w-scan rocking curve of the (002) plains for screw dislocations and the w-scan of asymetric plains such as (101) plains. Check the next reference:
Comparative study of threading dislocations in GaN epitaxial layers by nondestructive methods , Volume 57, January 2017, Pages 32-38
The pits can be estimated by counting its density by AFM.
The tramps can be studied by Deep-level transient spectroscopy.
Also luminescence can give you an idea of the crystal quality and deep defects.
Moreover you can measure the concentration of impurities such as Oxigen and Carbon by SIMS.
Finally Hall effect mobility can tell you the scattering mechanisms such as dislocations related to the defects in your film.
I hope this will be useful for you.
regards
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Do you know the 8 epitaxial growth modes as defined in Book Liquid Phase Epitaxy, editors P. Capper and M.Mauk Chapter 1?
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Dear Hans, meanwhile Michael Mauk published a newer review on LPE within the Second Edition of Elsevier Handbook of Crystal Growth, Vol. IIIA, Ch. 6 (2015). There, on page 244, Fig. 6.2, are shown the 8 methods and Michael added related comments. Is that, what you mean ? Best regards, Peter.
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Anyone has any recommendation on the supplier for small volume III-V InP epitaxy wafers with MQW or QD growth capability?
Used to purchase from IQE but now they do not entertain small volume growth.
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We offer such epi service, please contact me directly at
Best regards,
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I epitaxially sputtered BFO thin film on Nb:STO substrate. Film thickness is ~50 nm. According to PFM, I had hysteresis loops in good shape. But sometimes the phase difference is ~150, not 180. 
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Because ferroelectric BFO is Rhomboheral instead of tetragonal.
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Can anybody tell me how to calculate lattice misfit strain. There are n-numbers of literature and authors wrote about it and confused their own way. Let me say I have a film "a" which grows on substrate "b" and it is hetero epitaxial.  I know the orientation relationship which follows like  (010)a//(111)b and <100>a//<111>b.  In this situation what should be the lattice misfit strain beween film and the substrate? Do I have to calculate the misfit in terms of d-spacing in this plane? or do I have to calculate the lattice vector in that direction.The structure is monoclinic(film-a) on cubic (substrate-b). Looking for some sensible answer.
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At first, whatever the crystalline system is, atomic position for a and b should be nearly matched each other in various way, with off-axis angle.
please refer below
1. C. M. Carlson, P. A. Parilla, T. V. Rivkin, J. D. Perkins, and D. S. Ginley, Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 3278 (2000)
2. L. Vegard, Z. Phys. 5, 17 (1921)
3. Landolt-Bőrnstein handbook
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Hello,
I have deposited NiO thin film on STO epitaxially and now I want to see the dislocations in the film.
Could you help me for that?
Thanks in advance
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Ravi, 
"This would reveal only those defects that terminate on the exposed sample surface"
Yes, and that would not be a problem because misfit dislocations in epitaxial thin film usually terminated at the film surface. 
"This would reveal only those that have been exposed by the EPD method, correct?"
No. The epitaxial film growth process usually includes substrate heating or thermal annealing. These heating processes will cause thermal etching and pits will be formed at the surface terminated points of dislocations without any additional etching process. 
It's depending on the balance of surface energy and line tension of dislocations, but according to my experience, surface pits is easily formed at 1000 K.
So by limiting the discussion to the NiO epitaxial thin film on SrTiO3, surface topography measurement with AFM will be a simple and fast way to check dislocations.
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In binary nanoparticle which the spinodal decomposition occures, there is epitaxial relationship between crystals of two components( e.g Ag and Cu). 
I can not understand the concept of epitaxial relationship ?
if there is any references which explains this concept would be helpful.
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That means each crystalline structures have at least one common plane over which lattice planes belonging both crystals can match  with a minimum mismatch strain to  produce a coherent interface. This is a simple and operational definition.  This mismatch strain can be relaxed  due time by the formation entangled dislocations and/or quantum dot pattern formation in thin film. This mismatch strain energy is then becomes the main driving force. 
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1. Silicon Epitaxy expert
2. D.J. Eaglesham
3. H.J. Gossmann
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Thank you very much!
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Normally, Bi are considered to replace V spices in III-V-Bi alloys.( For example, the most widely studied GaAs1-xBix). However, it might be not  the case in InPBi.  It is a crucial problem for our future studies.
Recently, we grow InPBi epitaxial  layers on InP(100) surface by gas source MBE and many novel  phenomena are observed. For example, the mid-infrared photoluminescence and new raman peaks at 150 and 170 cm-1  which remind us the Bin clusters (the new raman feature may also be expected when InBi bonds are formed. From the STM results, up to now, we were just able to see the P atoms of (110)  face where some of them are replace by Bi atoms ). I hope there are other methods to solve this problem. Welcome suggestions!
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You can have InBi clasters, even as small as several atoms, in InP lattice. Small clusters should still be coherent with host lattice (but they may introduce strain to surrounding host lattice). So, not directly Bi_n clusters, when Bi is on both In and P sublattices, but (InBi)_n clusters, when Bi is still on P sublattice in InP, but locally aggregated into some larger molecules (several atoms) rather than nanoclusters (hundreds or thousands atoms). They may be hard to identify, as it is in case of high electrical doping. 
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specially about Ti-6Al-4V
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Epitaxially growth does not mean just single crystal, you can grow columnar grains in the direction of substrate grains.please read this articles.
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I want to know what will be took into consideration and their priority of choosing substrate for epitaxial film growth.
Specifically, I want to change the substrate to let one of my peak, which is not obvious in the current XRD result, to become strong. Then what aspect should I consider to achieve this? 
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Dear Zhimin Qi
Generally, the following factors are needed to be considered in epitaxial growth:
   - Growth mechanism or growth mode
   - Strain due to lattice mismatch and thickness of epitaxial layer(s)
   - Thermal lattice expansion
   - Interdiffusion between atoms in epitaxial layer(s) and substrate
Apart from these, the growth condition is very essential. We can effectively control the growth mechanism and interdiffusion through the growth condition such as growth temperature and growth rate.
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I have observed a different type of magnetization hysteresis curve in my sample (Heusler alloy thin film of bilayer structure CFA/Ta). Such type of hysteresis also observed by many other researcher specially in epitaxial films. But the problem is that they did not give the reason, why the hysteresis comes like this?
The hysteresis looks like the attached figure published in JMMM,362(2014)52.
Can anyone help to understand the reason why the hysteresis comes like this in epitaxial films???
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so this dates quite a while back. Have your questions been clarified?
for the moment just a comment on the following you wrote:
"I agree with the hardness comes from the magnetostriction (shape anisotropy). But the magnetostriction induce the anisotropy due to the dipolar interaction."
This is actually partly incorrect: Shape anisotropy derives from dipolar interactions, this is true. In a thin film, this contribution will favor in-plane magnetization vs. out of plane magnetization.
Magnetostriction, however, relates to mechanical (usually elastic) deformations which occur as magnetization is rotated. At the very heart of this is local spin orbit coupling (at the site of each moment). It can occur in ferromagnets and in antiferromagnets. CoO is a famous example for this: as magnetic order is established at the Nèel temperature, the crystal structure changes from cubic to tetragonal. Now, if you want to rotate the (staggered) magnetization from one easy axis to another, you also have to rotate the tetragonal distortion. This may give rise to a tremendous energy barrier having to be overcome.
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1) Which method should be used? a) gaussian b) sixth power function c) 2 with normalization 2) How to get E\sigma value? 3) How much %age of E-value is regarded as significant epitaxy?
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Good Morning Mam,
I am not finding attached link.
With Best Regards
Rupesh 
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As show in the attached file, notable bifurcations have been observed in the positive high field, but shows normal behavior in the negative field side.
Antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic (AFM/FM) multilayers have been epitaxially grown on the STO (diamagnetic) substrates.
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I would agree with the colleagues in that my first question would be: how many times have you reproduced the result and is it the same when you perform the loop in inverted sequence [one from pos. field to neg. and back to positive; another one the other way around]. It is very unlikely that what you observe is real unless you sample has changed its properties while doing the magnetization loop.
As a second remark, a single magnetization loop (even if reproduced and free of artifacts) will most likely not be able to tell you much physics about your sample. Especially for composite materials and exchange bias systems (which yours could be) there is a host of intelligent protocols worth studying in the pertinent literature.
Finally, also the negative field side does not necessarily look normal, the "up" and "down" branches do not really superimpose. If that is real, then your maximum negative field is smaller than the so-called irreversibility field and it would be useful to extend the measurement range. If not real, then there is a drift here, too, as indicated by Greig.
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I run Molecular Beam Epitaxy machine for the first time but I couldnot get RHEED oscillation.  The sample holder is slightly tilted like 3-5 deg due to loading and unloading. The grown film is not yet giving me good Photoluminescence peaks but on the SEM looks not bad. The RHEED voltage is 20KV and filament current is 1.8A.
Is there is suggestions to get the RHEED oscillation in roder  to calculate the growth rate?
Thanks,
Mahmood
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Hello again Mahmood,
To compare substrate temperature in your machine with rheed surface reconstruction maps or transition temperatures published in literature I would suggest you (in our corresponding lesson of elementary MBE  ;-)   - I am not sure  how  elementary it should be) to try  e.g. :
(1) first heat up fresh GaAs(001) substrate to around 450-500 oC read by TC in your machine, and then go on slowly in steps like 10 oC  every ~5 min to recognize oxides removal temp in rheed  (relatively fast increase of brightness of spots) which occurs at ~580-600 oC real substrate temp, as is commonly regarded, and then you will have an estimation how big is the difference between  TC and real surface temp in your MBE. It may be as high as +100 oC or -100 oC or even more depending on the machine. Usually above ~400 deg C I heat up GaAs under some As flux, like 1e-6 Tr.
(2) At real surface temp like 580-600 oC under As flux around  2e-6 Tr try to start growing  GaAs with Ga flux at around 1e-7 to 2e-7 Tr as measured by flux ion gauge, which should give you growth rate probably around 200-400 nm/h   and safe As/Ga BEP ratio of 10-20  which guarantee stable GaAs growth with As-rich conditions. After 50-100 nm of GaAs you should see (2x4) streaky basic rheed pattern rotating the substrate. And such surface with streaky pattern is good starting point  to play  with substrate temp.
(3) instead of changing Ga source temp you have mentioned  I suggest to change substrate temp still growing GaAs (again try to do it in steps like 10 oC/5 min ). At around 650 oC surface temp you should see a transition to (1x1) rheed pattern, then increasing surface temp more to around 680 oC you should see a change to (3x1) pattern. Again you can compare those published temps in rheed maps with readings of your TC to learn the difference in your machine.
(4) then you can try decreasing substrate temp still growing GaAs. Around 500 degC surface temp you should see a change of pattern to (2x1) or (2x2) -this last one is also named c(4x4) as you can see at 45 deg angle from the angular direction of seeing (2x2) pattern rotating the substrate.  You can decrease GaAs surface temp to as low as say 200 oC still growing GaAs, this is called low temperature MBE growth and is used sometimes eg in extreme highly doped GaAs.
Try to compare the temp reading from your TC with surface reconstruction maps published as this will give you good feeling where you are with real surface temp at a given TC set point . Such feeling is essential for future growth of various materials in your machine and comparing your  temperatures with published values in literature. But probably we all have some inaccuracy in the temperatures we give in reports, so own experience and trials are most important, at least for me.
(5) finally you can return to surface temp 580-600 oC and try to slowly decrease As flux  (As/Ga BEP ratio) as low as you can but still having (2x4) As rich pattern. This is usually the bottom line for stable growth of GaAs with good surface morphology.  This bottom line can be at BEP As/Ga ratio of say 3 to 10 depending on the machine, as I have written yesterday, it depends on surface temp used. 
(6) You can try similar temp trip with no growth, ie only under As flux or with different As/Ga ratio. There should be some difference at rheed pattern transition temperatures with one seen above.
(7) In older machines the difference between TC reading and real surface temp may unfortunately also depend on substrate holders. So you may check this too to know better the machine.
I hope those details may be useful, sorry if this all is obvious for you. I am not sure this is best practice but it works in our lab.
So, good luck for playing, 
Regards,
Tom
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Since we can obtain carrier mobility through 4-point measurement and Hall measurement of epitaxial structure (e.g. superlattices). But the value (or direction) we obtained should be mainly parallel to the sample surface. is there any method we can measure the vertical carrier mobility(perpendicular (direction) to sample surface)?
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I would like to ask you what is the purpose of measuring the mobility in the vertical direction. If your device is lateral then all what you need is to measure the mobility in the lateral direction as normally done and as you described. This is because the carrier transport will be in this lateral direction.
If your material is isotropic like silicon, then its mobility will be independent on the direction of the movement so long as you acquire the bulk properties. So, for isotropic materials the bulk mobility will be the same in all directions.
In case of thin film the the measured mobility mu will be an effective mobility, of the surface and volume such that 1/mu = 1/mub  + 1/mus, with mub is the bulk mobility and mus is the surface mobility.
However if you want to measure the mobility in the vertical direction along the epithelial film thickness you can make the substrate acts as a minority carrier injecting 
emitter in the film and then you supply the top of the film be collecting contact of the minority carrier, that is you form an npn or pnp structure from the substrate, the film and the added collector layer. The you can inject minority carrier pulse and collect it from the collector. The delay time between the injected and the collected  pule will be related to the the transit time which is in turn related to the mobility of carriers.
You can invert the arrangement and make the injector on the top and the collector at the substrate. In this case you can use laser pulse for initiation of the injection.
This method is based on time of flight measurement.
For more information, please revert to the link:
wish you success
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How are growth conditions different from other heteroepitaxial growths from domain matching epitaxy? How can I achieve domain matching epitaxial growth?
Thanks in advance,
Best Wishes
Nitin
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Dear All,
Thank you for your replies. Ravi, I have these papers but that anyway.
I am working on growing ZnO films on Al2O3 substrates with CVD. From literature they will have 6/7 or 5/6 domain matching epitaxy. I have read many reports claiming that you can get better quality films with DME as defect are limited to near substrate-film interface regions. I agree with you Vladimir that people are using DME approach to explain how their films grow with larger mismatch with substrate and still have good film quality. But there must be an explanation or growth conditions under which this DME is occurring. I agree with Gavin that if we can choose conditions where it encourage to have more misfit dislocations at film-substrate interface you may be able to get intentional DME growth. I am just curious to know how this works. As far I know ALE or ALD tends to grow polycrystalline or amorphous films. I am interested in epitaxial films.
Thank you for your help.
Regards
Nitin
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I already have determined interplane distances and corresponded crystallographic directions for the b-FeSi2. I'm interesting in b-FeSi2 [010] or [001] direction which is in the line with Si [111] one as can be seen on FFT images (b). So, I'll be very grateful for the help with correct writing of the relationship. Current version is: b-FeSi2 [010] or [001] // Si [111]; b-FeSi2 (101) or (110) // Si (111) but I'm not an expert in crystallography and indexing.
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Dear Hongwei Liu, I am very grateful to you for really clear answer about what is going on mentioned TEM image. It seems to be Si fragments that are displayed on the image.
Could you please help with analysis for the image I attached this time? The fragment situated in the central area in my opinion has some kind of several flat facets. Also, FFT demonstrate some extra spots that hardly correspond to second-diffraction phenomenon.
Yours sincerely,
Shevlyagin Alexander,
juniour researcher
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I am trying to remove LPCVD nitride from Si epitaxial layer using hot (150C) phosphoric acid. Anyone has experience whether the hot acid solution induces any damage on the epitaxial layer? 
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No damage, Si is very stable material.
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I know the difference between GaAs(111)A and (111)B is the surface termination. Now I have GaAs(111)A wafers for epitaxy puropse, and since it is double-side polished, can I just use the backside as (111)B, or it is not epi-ready in terms of growth purpose? On the other hand, I found little suppliers for GaAs(111)B with ONE side polished; and two-side polished wafers just increase the complexity of my experiment. Is there a special reason about this? 
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Growth on (111) is very different from (11-1) as the latter has a low growth rate and the (111) a 100 times higher growth rate surface in GaAs, see L. Hollan and C. Shiller, J. Crystal Growth 13/14, 319 (1972) and W. Shaw, J. Electrochem. Soc. 115, 405 (1968). The reason is the stability of the different surface reconstructions on these orientations.
Hence there in practive is no stable (111) surface obtained. Because the higher growth rate results from a strong sticking and thus a very low mobility on (111). However, a (111) surface can be stable (thermodynamically) at low V/III ratios (i.e. a very low growth rates for near equilibrium and low arsenic pressure). See the calculated WUlff plot (from A. Kley at FHI-Berlin 1997) In practice this is almost impossible to achieve in MOVPE but maybe possible via MBE.
About double side substrates: As written above those are first polished on one side, then mounted (glued) on that polished side and the final surface CMP is done; this is also done using a much finer polishing paste. While both side may look shiny, one side is much flatter and has much less polishing damage than the other. For epitaxy one the backside (and generally for any GaAs growth) you could try to etch the surfaces. An epi-ready ozone treatment tend to fail on high-index GaAs surface. If you attempt growth with MOVPE, a long anneal in H2 and AsH3 at 650°C may help before growth.
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My substrate is (001) orientation. The deposition temperature is 800°C. I have pre-treated my substrate in order to get TiO2-terminated terrace structure. The deposition pressure is 8mTorr and Ar:O2=3:1. 
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Dear Wang
The trick depends on the method which you are using. If you growing with PLD then minimized the gas pressure. The sample to target distance should not be grater than 7cm. It is also depends on the Laser power.
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This is with regards to thin film characterization. 
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In X-ray scattering, f' and f'' are the resonant or anomalous X-ray scattering factors,  expressing the non-Thomson part of the scattering form factor.  It is due to the X-ray energy being near (or, strictly speaking, below) any of the binding energies of the core electrons of any of the atoms.
I have no idea what the  PANalytical wants for these, but would imagine that the values at http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/FFast/html/form.html would be a good start.
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 We have deposited epitaxy Pt films  on MgO (100) substrate in Argon mixed with oxygen ambient. SEM observation reveals that there are always many holes in the highly epitaxy Pt(100) film (please see the attached ppt).  Moreover, the morphology of those holes is dependent on the oxygen partial pressure. What is the reason to create those holes?  
 
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MgO is hygroscopic. With H2O from ambient air, or else as a consequence of the cleaning treatment, hole defect can form in the substrate surface. This is particularly pronounced on the (111) surface but can also occur on the (100) surface. We had trouble with this issue many years ago and finally ended up by re-polishing the substrates just a few hours before use in thin film growth. You may want to have a look at the following publications in which the same issue was apparent with Ti growth on MgO:
Titanium thin film growth on small and large miscut substrates
M. Huth, C. P. Flynn
Appl. Phys. Lett. 71, 2466-68 (1997)
Also in our old work on Co/Pt trilayers and multilayers we had this issue:
MgO Surface Microstructure and Crystalline Coherence of Co/Pt Superlattices
P. Haibach, J. Köble, M. Jourdan, M. Huth, H. Adrian
Thin Solid Films 336, 168-171 (1998)
Step-edge induced anisotropic domain-wall propagation
P. Haibach, M. Huth, H. Adrian
Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 1312-1315 (2000)
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Hi every one!
I know the lattice misfit between an epitaxially grown film and the substrate, how do I calculate the in-plane stress (Film) as a function of film thickness.
Thank you
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Dear Phanikumar,
With the help of High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction (HRXRD) technique and Rocking curve analysis & Reciprocal lattice map of epitaxial film,  you can estimate the misfit value of your epitaxially grown film and the substrate.
May be you can contact Dr. CLAUDIO FERRARI , Head (Gruppo di Diffrazione X), IMEM – CNR, Parma, ITALY. Email: claudio.ferrari@cnr.it
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1. I have a SiGe epitaxial film and want to quantify the intensity of the bragg peaks recorded from my XRD (Cu-K-alpha) runs for comparison.
2. I am pretty sure that the final "integrated intensity" equation involving LP factor, Structure factor.. etc are different compared to powder/ poly-crystalline samples (which are more common)
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The instrument is Rigaku smart lab diffractometer with following settings ..
  1. Radiation Cu. K ALPHA radiation 
  2. Ge 220x2 bounce monochromator 
  3. Incident slit 1mm, receiving slit (1) 1mm, receiving slit (2) 1mm
  4. Detector is a scintillating counter in continuous mode 
  5. The peak I want to quantify is 111 peak from the epitaxial SiGe alloy film which is 100nm thick (substrate is Si (001) )
  6. Scan speed 0.1 deg/min , step size 0.05 deg
  7. Recorded scans are rocking curve scans in 111 azimuth ( w scan)
Thanks for helping out .. let me know if any other specific details are required 
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Could some expert practitioners share with me good practice examples how to cleave KCl and NaCl crystals?
I have cubes 25 mm and 10 mm and I would like to obtain thin slices 10 mm x 10 mm and 15 mm x 15 mm. With usage of a single edged razor blade and a small hammer (as suggested by SPI crystals), I can get 2mm thick slices, but I also produce a lot of waste ( I would guess ~50% of material). I find it unacceptably low and I would appreciate if someone could share some tips with me how to increase my yield.
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Thank you for your answers.
I tried many of different methods, but the one working the best, was to use razor blade broken in half, hit with a small 75g hammer.
Hereby, I close the topic.
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I'm considering growing some olivines and I'd like them to be grown epitaxially. I don't see a lot of epitaxial work on these materials. Can anyone suggest a good substrate?
Olivines have lattice parameters of roughly a~4.8, b~10.5 and c~6 angstroms.
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Seems like your best shot would be olivine on olivine.  What technique are you using to grow the olivine?  How big (measured parallel to the epitaxial surface) do you want the crystals to be? 
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0D or the conventional Geiger counter type detectors have been in use since the Braggs. How does this match up against the more modern 1D & 2D detectors?
Let us say I'm using a high resolution x-ray diffractometer Panalytical XRD MRD XL tool. Let us say my interests concerns rocking curve analysis for determination of crystalline quality of Silicon, Germanium, GaAs, epitaxial layers (Si, Ge, SiGe).
Let us say I was using a 0D detector (proportional detector filled with Xe gas) presently. What would your advise be to me if I'm evaluating the possibility to upgrade our system with a PIXcel 3D detector (2D area detector based on Medipix)? Assume that as a "happy Panalytical user" I wouldn't have any other choice like installing the Bruker VANTEC2000 on my Panalytical anyway. We should include the Rigaku, STOE, Bruker, Bede, Proto, Philips, Diano or other existing models as well, just to be fair.
Your data (please post examples when convenient) and experiences with any of these systems for XRD rocking curve analyses would be deeply appreciated.
Would a 2D detector be useful for my research purposes? Why?
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Detectors with very small effective pixel size are typically indirect detectors, i.e. a scintillator screen converts x-rays into visible light, which is then projected onto a larger pixel CCD or CMOS detector by a (visible light) microscope.
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I am searching for an Arrhenius plot (Diffusion coefficient as a function of temperature) for Nitrogen in Silicon Carbide. The temperature of interest is between 1000°C and 2000°C. The diffusivity of N in SiC is extremely small, but I would like to find some quantitative analysis. What I found so far [1] is D=5*10^-12 cm^2s^-1 @ 1800°C. More information would be very helpful to me.
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You may care to look at
Enhanced nitrogen diffusion in 4H-SiC
Applied Physics Letters Vol 80 No. 2,
and,
Enhanced Dopant Diffusion Effects in 4H Silicon Carbide
Materials Science Forum Vols. 389-393 (2002),
and,
Field Enhanced Diffusion of Nitrogen and Boron in 4H Silicon Carbide
Applied Physics Letters Vol 94 No 7 2003
I hope this helps a little.
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Silicon substrate was cleaned prior to deposition to remove native oxide. Off-axis (90 degree) PLD was performed at around 50 m.Torr oxygen partial pressure, 1 J/S.cm fluences and 500 C temperature which resulted in amorphous SrTiO3. Where similar conditions resulted in epitaxial SrTiO3 on SrTiO3 substrate.
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I don't think that it is possible to grow STO directly on Si at that background pressure. Si is easily oxidized and forms an amorphous SiOx layer preventing epitaxy.
Usually YSZ or CeO2/YSZ is used as buffer layer for epitaxial SrTiO3 growth on Si.
MBE allows to grow SrTiO3 on Si, but ultra high vacuum, low temperature deposition and recrystallization steps are needed (see for example Li et al. J. Appl. Phys. 93, 4521 (2003))