Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war die erstmalige, umfassende und systematische Untersuchung aller Teilprozesse bei der ionenstrahlgestützten Schichtabscheidung (IBSD). Silber (Metall) und Germanium (Halbleiter) wurden als Beispielsysteme ausgewählt, da auf Grund der unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften der beiden Materialien prinzipielle Unterschiede in der Zerstäubung und Schichtabscheidung zu erwarten sind. Zur Bearbeitung der wissenschaftlichen Fragestellung erfolgte eine Charakterisierung der Primärteilchen sowie der zerstäubten und gestreuten Teilchen bezüglich ihrer Energie und Winkelverteilung sowie eine Charakterisierung der abgeschiedenen Schichten bezüglich ihrer Schichtdicke, Komposition, Struktur, Oberflächentopographie, elektrischen und optischen Eigenschaften unter Variation der Art (Argon und Xenon), der Energie (0.5 keV–1.5 keV) und des Einfallswinkels der Primärteilchen relativ zur Targetnormalen (0°–60°) sowie des betrachteten polaren Emissionswinkels (-40°–90°). Die dargestellten Ergebnisse demonstrieren den systematischen Einfluss der primären Prozessparameter (Ionenart, Energie, Einfallswinkel und Emissionswinkel) auf die Eigenschaften der zerstäubten und gestreuten Teilchen und auf die Eigenschaften der erzeugten Silber- und Germaniumschichten, wobei die Eigenschaften der abgeschiedenen Schichten mit den Eigenschaften der schichtbildenden Teilchen korrelieren. Bei der IBSD von Silber führt der Einfluss der hochenergetischen zerstäubten und gestreuten Teilchen auf die Schichten zu kleineren mittleren Korngrößen und damit zu höheren spezifischen Widerständen und Variationen in den optischen Eigenschaften. Die Untersuchungen zur IBSD von Germanium zeigen, dass der Einbau von Prozessgas in die abgeschiedenen Schichten mit der Anzahl der gestreuten Primärionen, deren Energie hoch genug für eine Implantation in die Schicht ist, korreliert werden kann.

abstract: Pyrite is a 0.95 eV bandgap semiconductor which is purported to have great potential in widespread, low–cost photovoltaic cells. A thorough material selection process was used in the design of a pyrite sequential vapor deposition chamber aimed at reducing and possibly eliminating contamination during thin film growth. The design process focused on identifying materials that do not produce volatile components when exposed to high temperatures and high sulfur pressures. Once the materials were identified and design was completed, the ultra–high vacuum growth system was constructed and tested. Pyrite thin films were deposited using the upgraded sequential vapor deposition chamber by varying the substrate temperature from 250°C to 420°C during deposition, keeping sulfur pressure constant at 1 Torr. Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) results showed that all contaminants in the films were reduced in concentration by orders of magnitude from those grown with the previous system. Characterization techniques of Rutherford Back–scattering Spectrometry (RBS), X–Ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, Optical Profilometry and UV/Vis/Near–IR Spectroscopy were performed on the deposited thin films. The results indicate that stoichiometric ratio of S:Fe, structural–quality (epitaxy), optical roughness and percentage of pyrite in the deposited thin films improve with increase in deposition temperature. A Tauc plot of the optical measurements indicates that the pyrite thin films have a bandgap of 0.94 eV. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Materials Science and Engineering 2016

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Membrane fouling, which is caused by deposition/adsorption of foulants on the surface or within membrane pores, still remains a bottleneck that hampers the widespread application of membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology for wastewater treatment. Recently membrane surface modification has proved to be a useful method in water/wastewater treatment to improve the surface hydrophilicity of membranes to obtain higher water fluxes and to reduce fouling. In this study, membrane modification was investigated by depositing a thin film of same thickness of TiO2 on the surface of an ultrafiltration alumina membrane. Various thin-film deposition (TFD) methods were employed, i.e. electron-beam evaporation, sputter and atomic layer deposition (ALD), and a comparative study of the methods was conducted to assess fouling inhibition performance in a lab-scale anaerobic MBR (AnMBR) fed with synthetic municipal wastewater. Thorough surface characterization of all modified membranes was carried out along with clean water permeability (CWP) tests and fouling behavior by bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption tests. The study showed better fouling inhibition performance of all modified membranes; however the effect varied due to different surface characteristics obtained by different deposition methods. As a result, ALD-modified membrane showed a superior status in terms of surface characteristics and fouling inhibition performance in AnMBR filtration tests. Hence ALD was determined to be the best TFD method for alumina membrane surface modification for this study. ALD-modified membranes were further characterized to determine an optimum thickness of TiO2-film by applying different ALD cycles. ALD treatment significantly improved the surface hydrophilicity of the unmodified membrane. Also ALD-TiO2 modification was observed to reduce the surface roughness of original alumina membrane, which in turn enhanced the anti-fouling properties of modified membranes. Finally, a same thickness of ALD-TiO2 and ALD-SnO2 modified membranes were tested for alginate fouling inhibition performance in a dead-end constant-pressure filtration system. This is the first report on the application of SnO2-modified ceramic membrane for testing its alginate fouling potential; which was determined to be nearly-same for both modified membranes with a negligible amount of difference. This revealed SnO2 as a potential future anti-foulant to be tested for membrane modification/fabrication for application in water/wastewater treatment systems.

This diploma thesis deals with the automation of the deposition process by ion beam sputtering and ion beam assisted deposition. This work contains drawings of mechanical adjustments of the deposition chamber designed to control shutter and rotation of the target using stepper motors. There are presented ways to control stepper motors and troubleshoot their exact settings. Another task is to design a system for computer control of the deposition process. There are discussed ways to control the ion sources, pressure meter, flow meter and thickness meter, and their connection to a PC via RS-232 and analog-digital converters. It is also designed control program in LabVIEW, which allow automated multilayer deposition. Last part of the thesis deals with testing automatic deposition and results are commented.

Nanomagnetic devices are highly energy efficient and non-volatile. Because of these two attributes, they are potential replacements to many currently used information processing technologies, and they have already been implemented in many different applications. This dissertation covers a study of nanomagnetic devices and their applications in various technologies for information processing – from simulating and analyzing the mechanisms behind the operation of the devices, to experimental investigations encompassing magnetic film growth for device components to nanomagnetic device fabrication and measurement of their performance. Theoretical sections of this dissertation include simulation-based modeling of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy magnetic tunnel junctions (p-MTJ) and low energy barrier nanomagnets (LBM) – both important devices for magnetic device-based information processing. First, we propose and analyze a precessionally switched p-MTJ based memory cell where data is written without any on-chip magnetic field that dissipates energy as low as 7.1 fJ. Next, probabilistic (p-) bits implemented with low energy barrier nanomagnets (LBMs) are also analyzed through simulations, and plots show that the probability curves are not affected much by reasonable variations in either thickness or lateral dimensions of the magnetic layers. Experimental sections of this dissertation comprise device fabrication aspects from the basics of material deposition to the application-based demonstration of an extreme sub-wavelength electromagnetic antenna. Magnetic tunnel junctions for memory cells and low barrier nanomagnets for probabilistic computing, in particular, require ultrathin ferromagnetic layers of uniform thickness, and non-uniform growth or variations in layer thickness can cause failures or other problems. Considerable attention was focused on developing methodologies for uniform thin film growth. Lastly, micro- and nano-fabrication methods are used to build an extreme sub-wavelength electromagnetic antenna implemented with an array of magnetostrictive nanomagnets elastically coupled to a piezoelectric substrate. The 50 pW signal measured from the approximately 250,000-nanomagnet antenna sample was 10 dB above the noise floor.

The optimisation of the specular reflectance of solar collectors is a key parameter to increase the global yield of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. In this work, the influence of filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition parameters, particularly working pressure and deposition time, on the specular and diffuse reflectance of aluminium thin films, was studied. Changes in specular reflectance, measured by ultraviolet–visible and near-infrared spectroscopy (UV-vis-NIR) spectrophotometry, were directly correlated with thin film elemental concentration depth profiles, obtained by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), and surface and cross-sectional morphologies as measured by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and profilometry. Finally, atomic force microscopy (AFM) provided information on the roughness and growth mechanism of the films. The two contributions to the total reflectance of the films, namely diffuse and specular reflectance, were found to be deeply influenced by deposition conditions. It was proven that working pressure and deposition time directly determine the predominant factor. Specular reflectance varied from 12 to 99.8% of the total reflectance for films grown at the same working pressure of 0.1 Pa and with different deposition times. This transformation could not be attributed to an oxidation of the films as stated by RBS, but was correlated with a progressive modification of the roughness, surface, and bulk morphology of the samples over the deposition time. Hence, the evolution in the final optical properties of the films is driven by different growth mechanisms and the resulting microstructures. In addition to the originally addressed CSP applications the potential of the developed aluminium films for other application rather than CSP, such as, for example, reference material for spectroscopic diffuse reflectance measurements, is also discussed.

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