2.1 Fabrication of microstructures (silicon spikes) Single crystal n-type Si (1 0 0) wafers were subjected to laser irradiation in a vacuum chamber evacuated down to a residual pressure of 10 -2 mbar. A constant pressure of 500 Torr was maintained during the process through a precision micro valve system. The irradiating laser source was constituted by a regenerative amplified Ti:Sapphire (λ = ...

An increasing interest in the non-contact corona charge-based electrical characterization technique, CnCV, for wide bandgap semiconductors, is justified by reduction of cost and testing feedback time [1]. In addition, technique expands measurement capabilities. Regarding SiC, recent progress includes expanded dopant concentration range on fresh epitaxial wafers. The latter made possible with an...

Sapphire (a-A1203) is a desirable substrate for the growth of superconducting thin films due to its low dielectric constant and the extensive interest on silicon on sapphire technology. Unfortunately there exists a strong chemical interaction between sapphire and REBa,CusO,, ( RE123 ) ceramics’-3 which complicates the growth of high-quality-thin-film ceramic superconductors. Several reports on ...

Plastic zone evolution in Al–2 wt% Si metal films on silicon and sapphire substrates was studied using nanoindentation and atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM was used to measure the extent of plastic pileup, which is a measure of the plastic zone radius in the film. It was found that the plastic zone size develops in a self-similar fashion with increasing indenter penetration when normalized by...

Sapphire fiber based temperature sensors are exceptional in their ability to operate at temperatures above 1000oC and as high as 1800oC. Sapphire fiber technology is emerging and the fiber is available commercially. Sapphire fiber has a high loss, is highly multi-mode and does not have a solid cladding, but it is nonetheless very useful in high temperature applications. Of the available interfe...

We report on an 8-bit successive approximation analog-to-digital converter (SA-ADC) that was designed and fabricated in 0.5m silicon on sapphire CMOS technology. The SA-ADC is capable of 32-MHz operation, providing 1.23-MS/s conversion rates, and consumes 800 W at 3.3-V supply. The lack of substrate parasitic capacitances enables the use of small-area capacitors and reduces the noise coupling t...

Single-crystal sapphire (α-Al2O3) is a hard and brittle material. Due to its highly crystalline nature, the fracture behavior of sapphire is strongly related to its crystal structure, and understanding the effects of crystal structure on the crack propagation of sapphire is essential for the successful application of this important material (e.g., as wafers in the electronics industry). In the ...

In this work, we present a method able to fabricate thin GaN nanomembranes fit for device applications. Starting from commercial GaN on sapphire substrates, MBE was used to deposit a sacrificial layer, which comprises of a superlattice of InN/InGaN, after which thin a GaN film of hundreds of nanometers thickness was grown on top. Pulsed laser irridiation with photon energy of 2.3eV gives rise t...

A microcavity-based deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) optical biosensor is demonstrated for the first time using synthetic sapphire for the optical cavity. Transmitted and elastic scattering intensity at 1510 nm are analyzed from a sapphire microsphere (radius 500 µm, refractive index 1.77) on an optical fiber half coupler. The 0.43 nm angular mode spacing of the resonances correlates well with the o...

The interface formation mechanisms of AlN films on sapphire substrates grown by the elementary source vapor phase epitaxy (EVPE) method, which is a new AlN bulk fabrication method using Al and N2 as precursors, are investigated. Supplying N2 after the substrate temperature reaches the growth temperature [Process N2(GT)] causes the interface to become rough due to the thermal decomposition of sa...