Emission and sputtering characteristics of Ne-Ar mixed gas glow discharge plasmas.

The emission characteristics of several Cu lines emitted from a Ne-Ar mixed gas glow discharge plasma were investigated. The addition of small amounts of Ar to a Ne plasma increases the sputtering rate of a Cu sample because Ar ions, which work as the impinging ions for cathode sputtering, are predominantly produced through Penning ionization collisions between Ne metastables and Ar atoms. Ar addition also elevates the number density of electrons in the plasma. These changes occurring in the Ne-Ar mixed gas plasma result in enhanced emission intensities of the Cu lines. The Cu II 270.10-nm and the Cu II 224.70-nm lines yield different intensity dependence on the Ar partial pressure added. This phenomenon is because these Cu II lines are excited principally through different charge transfer processes: collisions with Ne ions for the Cu II 270.10-nm line and collisions with Ar ions for the Cu II 224.70-nm line. The shape of sputtered craters in the Ne-Ar glow discharge plasma was measured. The depth resolution was improved when Ar was added to a Ne plasma because the crater bottoms were flatter with larger Ar partial pressures.     

III-V compound semiconductor (001) surfaces

There has been renewed interest in the structure of III-V compound semiconductor (001) surfaces caused by recent experimental and theoretical findings, which indicate that geometries different from the seemingly well-established dimer models describe the surface ground state for specific preparation conditions. I review briefly the structure information available on the (001) surfaces of GaP, InP, GaAs and InAs. These data are complemented with first-principles total-energy calculations. The calculated surface phase diagrams are used to explain the experimental data and reveal that the stability of specific surface structures depends largely on the relative size of the surface constituents. Several structural models for the Ga-rich GaAs (001)(4×6) surface are discussed, but dismissed on energetic grounds. I discuss in some detail the electronic properties of the recently proposed cation-rich GaAs (001)ζ(4×2) geometry. Received: 18 May 2001 / Revised version: 23 July 2001 / Published online: 3 April 2002     

Adsorption of nonionic surfactant triton X-100 on solids from aqueous and nonaqueous solutions

The adsorption of nonionic surfactant Triton X-100 on quartz sand and methylated quartz sand from water and toluene was investigated by means of spectrophotometry, the radiotracer technique, and wetting angle measurements.     

Differentiation of species of the Baccharis genus by HPLC and chemometric methods.

Phytochemical investigation of the aerial parts of three Baccharis species (Asteraceae family) was performed using HPLC and chemometric methods, with the objective of distinguishing between three morphologically very similar species: Baccharis genistelloides Persoon var. trimera (Less.) DC, B. milleflora (Less.) DC and B. articulata (Lam.) Persoon. With the help of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and variance weights, it was possible to characterize the chromatographic profiles of the alcoholic extracts of the three species. Application of Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) methods on a training set of 74 extracts resulted in models that correctly classified all eight samples in an independent test set.     

Diffuse x-ray scattering study of the formation of microdefects in heat-treated dislocation-free large-diameter silicon wafers

Diffuse x-ray scattering (DXS) is used to study the formation of microdefects (MDs) in heat-treated dislocation-free large-diameter silicon wafers with vacancies. The DXS method is shown to be efficient for investigating MDs in silicon single crystals. Specific defects, such as impurity clouds, are found to form in the silicon wafers during low-temperature annealing at 450°C. These defects are oxygen-rich regions in the solid solution with diffuse coherent interfaces. In the following stages of decomposition of the supersaturated solid solution, oxide precipitates form inside these regions and the impurity clouds disappear. As a result of the decomposition of the supersaturated solid solution of oxygen, interstitial MDs form in the silicon wafers during multistep heat treatment. These MDs lie in the {110} planes and have nonspherical displacement fields. The volume density and size of MDs forming in the silicon wafers at various stages of the decomposition are determined.