Extended defects in shallow implants

Extended defects are often found after ion implantation and annealing of silicon and they are known to affect dopant diffusion. The article reviews the structure and energetics of the most often found extended defects and describes the mechanisms by which all these defects grow in size and transform during annealing. Defects grow by interchanging the Si atoms they are composed of and thus maintain large supersaturations of free Si interstitials in the region. A model has been developped to describe such an evolution in presence of a free surface. It is shown that after low energy implantation, the surface of the wafer may recombine large amounts of these free Si interstitials, driving defects into dissolution before transformation into more stable forms. Received: 21 August 2002 / Accepted: 21 August 2002 / Published online: 12 February 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +33-56/2257-999, E-mail: claverie@cemes.fr     

Second- and third-harmonic generations for a nondilute suspension of coated particles with radial dielectric anisotropy

We derive expressions for the effective nonlinear susceptibility tensors for both the second harmonic generation (SHG) and induced third harmonic generation (THG) of nonlinear composite materials, in which nondilute coated particles with radial dielectric anisotropy are randomly embedded in the linear host. Two types of coated particles are considered. The first is that the core possesses a second order nonlinear susceptibility and the shell is linear and radially anisotropic, while the second is that the core is linear with radial anisotropy and the shell has a second order nonlinear susceptibility. We observe greatly enhanced SHG and THG susceptibilities at several surface plasmon resonant frequencies. For the second model, due to the coating material being metallic, there exists two fundamental resonant frequencies ω_c1 and ω_c2, whose difference ω_c2-ω_c1 is strongly dependent on the interfacial parameter and the radial dielectric anisotropy. Furthermore, in both systems, the adjustment of the dielectric anisotropy results in larger enhancement of both SHG and induced THG susceptibilities at surface plasmon resonant frequencies than the corresponding isotropic systems. Therefore, both the core-shell structure and the dielectric anisotropy play important roles in determining the nonlinear enhancement and the surface resonant frequencies.     

Polarons in quantum chains with XY exchange and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction

Excitations of the polaron types are investigated in the spin-1/2 quantum chain with XY exchange and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction, both coupled to acoustic vibrations of the substrate lattice. The study is carried out via Jordan-Wigner transformation with the help of which the spin chain is mapped onto a chain of spinless fermions. From the resulting effective fermion-lattice Hamiltonian, the discrete equations of motion are derived. These equations are solved in the continuum limit for self-trapped states near the bottom of the fermion spectrum interacting with long-wavelength acoustic lattice modes. The associate polaron solution, which has a pulse shape, is shown to propagate bound to the induced lattice kink distortion by translation along the chain at a constant velocity v. The pair can also experience an additional acceleration ϑ₀ when the free fermion charge is excited above its groundstate. The polaron binding energy is strongly reduced, depending quadratically on the ratio D/J of the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction strength D to the isotropic XY exchange interaction J. It is also found that polaron parameters depend only on the XY spin-lattice coupling but not on the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya contribution.     

Surface modification of silicon with single ion irradiation

In order to solve the issues in Si nanoelectronics such as fluctuation in the device functions and poor reliability of devices due to relative increase in mass transport in nm size structures and to yield novel functions by rather taking advantage of the nm size, we need to understand the phenomena peculiar to nm size structures. Based on the fact that a practical method to fabricate nm structures in terms of throughput, process time, and cost is to combine modification of solid surfaces with energetic particles (especially with single ions) and subsequent chemical processing in solutions, we describe single ion irradiation effects as a tool to modify solid surfaces in nm scale, a method for nm scale in-situ observation of solid surfaces, and some examples of the acquired knowledge.     

Existence and Stability of Compact-Like Discrete Breather in Discrete One-Dimensional Monatomic Chains

Compact-like discrete breathers in discrete one-dimensional monatomic chains are investigated by discussing a generalized discrete one-dimensional monatomic model. It is proven that compact-like discrete breathers exist not only in soft Ф^4 potential but also in hard Ф^4 potential and K4 chains. The measurements of compact-like discrete breathers＇ core in soft and hard Ф^4 potential are determined by coupling parameter K4, while the measurements of compact-like discrete breathers＇ core in K4 chains are not related to coupling parameter K4. The stabilities of compact-like discrete breathers correlate closely to coupling parameter K4 and the boundary condition of lattice.     

The international space year: Priorities and perspectives

Summary Principal purposes of the International Space Year (ISY) have been discussed. In view of the increasing significance of ecological problems it is becoming clear that there have to be two key directions of the ISY programmes: 1) various problems relevant to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (global climate change, global biosphere dynamics, regional ecological problems: desertification, forest decline, acid rains etc.); 2) comparative planetology. One of the most urgent problems is connected with the accomplishment, of the ?Mission to Planet Earth? which has to be based on the creation of an optimal global system of satellite and conventional ecological observations (especially for various typical ecosystems). Studies of the other planets have to be coordinated with requirements of further investigations in the field of the Earth's ecology.     

Unusual thermal conductivity of the negative thermal expansion material, ZrW2O8

In order to investigate the relationship between negative thermal expansion and other thermal properties, the thermal conductivity of the α-phase of ZrW₂O₈ has been determined from 1.9 to 390 K. In addition, the heat capacity was measured from 1.9 to 300 K. The thermal conductivity of ZrW₂O₈ is low, glass-like and close to its theoretical minimum value. The phonon-phonon coupling of the highly anharmonic low-frequency modes which are responsible for negative thermal expansion in ZrW₂O₈ appears to be highly efficient, leading to short phonon mean free paths and exceptionally low thermal conductivity.     

Breather trapping and breather transmission in a DNA model with an interface

We study the dynamics of moving discrete breathers in an interfaced piecewise DNA molecule. This is a DNA chain in which all the base pairs are identical and there exists an interface such that the base pairs dipole moments at each side are oriented in opposite directions. The Hamiltonian of the Peyrard-Bishop model is augmented with a term that includes the dipole-dipole coupling between base pairs. Numerical simulations show the existence of two dynamical regimes. If the translational kinetic energy of a moving breather launched towards the interface is below a critical value, it is trapped in a region around the interface collecting vibrational energy. For an energy larger than the critical value, the breather is transmitted and continues travelling along the double strand with lower velocity. Reflection phenomena never occur. The same study has been carried out when a single dipole is oriented in opposite direction to the other ones. When moving breathers collide with the single inverted dipole, the same effects appear. These results emphasize the importance of this simple type of local inhomogeneity as it creates a mechanism for the trapping of energy. Finally, the simulations show that, under favorable conditions, several launched moving breathers can be trapped successively at the interface region producing an accumulation of vibrational energy. Moreover, an additional colliding moving breather can produce a saturation of energy and a moving breather with all the accumulated energy is transmitted to the chain.     

Quasicontinuum approximation and iterative method for envelope solitons in anharmonic chains

For solitary waves on a monoatomic chain with nearest neighbor interactions the continuum approximation has a limited validity range and exhibits certein mathematical problems. For pulse solitons these problems are overcome by the Quasicontinuum Approach (QCA), and the validity range is considerably extended. We generalize the QCA to oscillatory excitations and derive analytic expressions for bright and dark envelope solitons, limiting ourselves to a polynomial interaction potential with harmonic, cubic and quartic terms. Moreover we describe and apply a numerical iteration procedure in Fourier space in order to take into account discreteness effects in a systematic way. This procedure yields envelope solitons with a width in the order of the lattice constant. In the case of zero velocity these solutions can be compared with intrinsic localized modes derived by other authors. The stability and accuracy of all our solutions are tested by numerical simulations.     

Back doping design in delta-doped AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors

In this paper, we investigate theoretically the electron transport in AlGaN/GaN single-barrier and in AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN double-barrier heterostructures, aimed to operate as high-power and high-temperature field-effect transistors. The presence of spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations as well as the heterointerface polarity are evoked and taken into account in the modelling part. Delta-doping is used as a source of electrons for the channel quantum well. Calculations of the electron-band parameters are made by using self-consistent solutions of coupled Schrodinger-Poisson equations. It is found that the polarization fields act to significantly increase the two-dimensional sheet charge concentration. Moreover, the AlGaN/GaN heterostructures with higher Al compositions are found to be favourable for higher electron densities. On the other hand, the employment of a back doping with delta-shaped profiles is shown to improve further the electrical behaviour of the field-effect transistors studied.