engleski

Grazing incidence X-ray study of Ge-nanoparticle formation in (Ge:SiO2)/SiO2 multilayers

We present the study of formation of Ge-nanoparticles (Ge-NP) in germanosilicate (Ge:SiO2) multilayer (ML) films under thermal treatment. In anticipation of controllable formation of Ge-NP, ML films were prepared by magnetron deposition at room temperature as 20 bi-layer stacks, each bi-layer comprised of a 7 nm thick layer of (Ge+SiO2) (molar ratio: 60:40) succeeded by a 7 nm thick layer of pure SiO2, and then annealed for 1 h, up to Ta=900 °C. Formation and morphology of Ge-NP were analyzed by combining the information obtained from the grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering and X-ray diffraction. It was found that precipitation of Ge-NP starts at Ta=600 °C, while high degree of in-plane confinement and lateral ordering of rather uniform precipitated particles is achieved at Ta= 700?800 °C range. At still higher annealing temperature Ta>800 °C, volume fraction of precipitated Ge-NP in SiO2 matrix diminishes due to the outdiffusion of Ge atoms from the film, while Ge-NP are no more well confined to (Ge+SiO2) layers.

germanium ; multilayer ; GISAXS ; diffraction

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