Nickel monosilicide (NiSi) nanowires (NWs) have been fabricated in a DC magnetron system by the Metal Induced Growth (MIG) method. The NW growing stages were sequentially observed by scanning electron microscopy. Deposited Ni on SiO2 coated Si wafers has been first grooved and agglomerated by thermal heating at 575 °C. In the sputtering procedure, Ni as a catalyst reacted with sputtered Si forming clusters. Nanowires were grown in the same directions on each cluster. Raman spectroscopy and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy indicated the NW composition as NiSi. The linear propagating property of NWs was used to form self-assembled nanobridges (NBs) in trenched Si wafers. The affinity of NWs can be used on various substrate materials with less thermal damage. NiSi composed MIG-NBs are promising candidates as nanoscale contacts due to the features of low resistivity and low temperature processing giving less potential damage on fabricated structures.

In situ transmission electron microscopy analysis is used to study the stability of nanograined and ultra-fine grained thin films at elevated temperatures. In the free-standing Au and Cu films, grain growth was dependent on annealing temperature and time with growth observed in both materials at temperatures greater than 373K. Both materials exhibited abnormal grain growth although it was more prevalent in Au than in Cu, which may be a consequence of pinning of the Cu grain boundaries by impurities. The formation and destruction of twins was observed to play a critical role in the grain growth, with the twins retarding the growth in gold, but not in Cu. In constrained Au films no grain growth was observed on annealing at temperatures below 636 K. At 636 K, the eutectic temperature, the microstructure transformed to the eutectic structure with the first stage being the annihilation of the grain structure.

The stress distribution of (111) textured Cu films with depth was measured by using a GIXS method. We derived the equation to correct a scattering diffraction angle with depth, measured in the GIXS Seemann-Bohlin geometry, to obtain the actual scattering angle. It was revealed after the correction of the measured scattering angles that the internal stresses of (111) grains, on the whole, tend to increase almost linearly with increasing film depth from the free surface toward the substrate. It was suggested that these results were opposite to the results of the elastic calculation reported, and hence that a large stress relaxation took place during and/or after deposition and annealing. After annealing at various temperatures, these stress distribution profiles are almost unchanged, and are simply shifted uniformly in magnitude.

In this study, we observed that the MILC behavior changed when the amorphous silicon active pattern width was changed abruptly and explain that phenomena with novel MILC mechanism model. The 10nm thick Ni layers were deposited on glass substrate that has various amorphous silicon patterns on it. Then we annealed the sample at 550 °C with RTA (rapid thermal annealing) machine and measured the crystallized length with optical microscope. The MILC rate was reduced dramatically and stopped for several hours (incubation time). After the incubation time, the MILC started again and the incubation time increased as the amorphous silicon pattern width difference getting larger. We can explain these phenomena with the tensile stress that was caused by volume shrinkage due to the phase transform from amorphous silicon to crystalline silicon.

Molecular dynamics simulations of bulk nanocrystalline Cu with dopant atoms segregated in the grain boundary regions were performed to investigate the impediment of grain growth during annealing at constant temperature of 800K. In this parametric study, the concentration and atomic radii mismatch between the dopants and the host atoms were systematically varied to determine how to most effectively retard grain growth. It is found that samples with positive excess enthalpy (ΔH) underwent various degrees of grain growth; however, when ?H was negative, no coarsening occurred. Also, ΔH varied linearly with dopant concentration with the slope equal to the enthalpy of segregation, in agreement with previous theoretical work.

The mean size of dome clusters grown by molecular beam epitaxy of pure Ge onto Si(100) at substrate temperatures, T, of 550°C and 650°C is deposition rate dependent. For samples with nominal Ge coverages near 8 ML (1 ML = 6.78 ×1014 atoms/cm2) and deposition rates between 1.4 and 17.5 ML/min, higher deposition rates decreased the mean dome diameter and increased the dome areal density. Additionally, the critical volume for the pyramid-to-dome transition decreases with increasing deposition rate for islands grown between T = 550°C and 650°C. By this measure, the Ge content of the dome clusters rises with increasing deposition rate. Quantitative, nm-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) measurements taken in a scanning transmission electron microscope confirm these results. For domes grown at T = 650°C with rates of 1.4 ML/min and 17.5 ML/min, EELS indicates 59% and 70% Ge compositions, respectively. These results show that dome cluster composition may be kinetically controlled by varying the Ge deposition rate.

We have utilized time-resolved high-temperature atomic force microscopy (AFM) to investigate the mechanism by which topographic templates induce alignment of cylinder-forming diblock copolymer thin films. By tracking the same sample spot during thermal annealing, we observed that the structural evolution and alignment of thin films in confinement involve an intermediate state with disordered morphology and the evolution and annihilation of disclination quadrupoles guided by the channel edges, which ultimately lead to the essentially perfect alignment of cylindrical microdomains.