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In-situ Investigation of the Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Nanosized Silicon Powders
- Ingo Pluemel, Hartmut Wiggers
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- Journal:
- MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive / Volume 1083 / 2008
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 February 2011, 1083-R05-06
- Print publication:
- 2008
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- Article
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The use of nanosized Silicon powders in nanoelectronics and photovoltaics enables new technologies and promises to reduce the production costs of devices like solar cells and printable electronics significantly. However, to understand their electrical behavior and mechanical properties, such systems must be examined carefully. In porous systems like powders, the macroscopic electrical properties result from transport mechanisms such as hopping and tunneling between particles as well as from structural properties such as the amount and shape of particle contacts. Theoretical approaches like the strongest stresses network or the brick layer model can only describe this complex relation in a simplyfied way and need to be accompanied by suitable experiments. Nanosized pure and doped Silicon powders, synthesized in a microwave supported plasma reactor, were characterized by determining in-situ the conductance, impedance, and the change of porosity while applying a uniaxial mechanical pressure ranging from 7.5 to 750MPa. The porosity change of the powder during electrical measurements was characterized by means of a laser interferometer to determine the mechanical properties of the powder more accurately. Conductance measurements as a function of the applied pressure show an exponential dependence for nanosized particles and a power law for microsized particles. Simple scaling considerations in respect of the particle size cannot explain this fundamentally different behavior. Therefore a more sophisticated model is needed. A time dependent change in conductance together with a decrease in porosity was observed while applying a constant pressure, suggesting friction limited compaction of the powder. For a constant external force, the comparison of different samples leads to a clear power law dependence between the conductance of pressed samples and their mean particle diameter. This size effect spans seven orders of magnitude of the conductance while the particle size changes by only a factor of ten, and it clearly exceeds any influence of the doping concentration and the variation of the sample mass. To separate the contributions of the particle cores, particle-particle, and particle-electrode contacts to the complex conductance and capacitance, impedance spectroscopy was performed. In agreement with the observed compaction of the powder, the spectra show a strong increase of the sample capacitance and conductance as a function of the applied pressure.
Direct Assembly of Quantum Confined Nano-Particles
- Ingo Pluemel, Klemens Hitzbleck, Ivo W. Rangelow, Jan Meijer, Hartmut Wiggers
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- Journal:
- MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive / Volume 1017 / 2007
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 February 2011, 1017-DD10-06
- Print publication:
- 2007
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- Article
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Advances in nanoparticle technology enable the production of new types of electronic devices, catalytic systems and complex functional surface coatings. For most of these applications, random deposition or self-assembled arrangement of the particles on surfaces are sufficient. However, an increasing number of potential applications such as single electron transistors and quantum computers require exact placement of single nanoparticles with sub-10 nm resolution and specific size. Till date, techniques that provide an exact online placement of countable and size-selected nanoparticles for functional devices have not been reported. For this purpose a cluster-jet system, based on a gas-phase nanoparticle synthesis source, connected to a focussing collimator system has been developed. The objective of this technique is to assemble countable single nanoparticles with spatial resolution of 10 nm or below onto a pre-structured substrate. In the first stage of this system, nanoparticles in the size regime between 3 and 10 nm are synthesized in a lowpressure microwave plasma reactor. This reactor has the unique advantage of generating particles with defined size distribution, structure, morphology and low degree of agglomeration due to coulomb repulsion during particle formation and growth. Separated single particles are extracted by means of a particle laden molecular beam. A mass filter consisting of a particle mass spectrometer (PMS) coupled to the reactor is used to select nanoparticles of a specific size, according to their mass, charge and kinetic energy. In order to achieve the designated lateral resolution, the particle laden beam will be collimated by electromagnetic lenses and focused onto a pierced AFM-tip. Operation of the focusing mechanism and tip preparation have been successfully performed separatly and are currently being adapted to the use in the cluster-jet system. After completion, this technique is intended to enable the assembly of nanoparticles in almost any desired two-dimensional structure onto a substrate.