Controlled incorporation of dopants into semiconductors nanowires is a critical step in tailoring their physical properties and hence for their utilization in future nano electronic devices. Recently, several studies addressing this issue revealed that dopant are inhomogeneously distributed in NWs grown by the popular CVD-VLS growth technique. The majority of those studies employed indirect characterization techniques which are sensitive to the active dopants only. In order to deepen our understanding of the incorporation mechanism a direct observation of the dopant chemical concentrations is required. In addition, the comparison between direct and indirect observations can shed some light on the dopant activation mechanisms in VLS grown NWs. In this study nanoprobe scanning Auger microscopy was employed to extract the longitudinal dopant distribution along P doped SiNWs. The effect of growth conditions and post-growth annealing on this distribution was studied and compared to previous studies which used indirect measurement techniques. In addition, dopant modulated segmented NWs were studied in order to distinguish the contribution of different mechanisms to the incorporation of dopants into VLS grown NWs.

Three techniques based on transmission electron microscope (TEM) have been successfully applied to measure strain/stress in the channel area of PMOS semiconductor devices with embedded SiGe in the source/drain areas: convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED), nano beam diffraction (NBD) and dark-filed holography (DFH). Consistent channel strain measurements from the three techniques on the same TEM sample (eSiGe PMOS with 17%Ge) were obtained. Reliable strain/stress measurement results in the channel area have been achieved with very good agreement with computer-aided design (TCAD) calculations.

Titanium alloys are among the most used metallic biomaterials, particularly for orthopedic applications. Ever since the pioneer titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) has been used as biomaterial, lack of biocompatibility has been extensively reported and propelled research on improved materials with appropriate mechanical behavior and adequate biocompatibility. Studies have indicated that vanadium produces oxides harmful to the human body; in order to replace vanadium containing Ti alloys, Ti-6Al-7Nb was developed. Today this alloy is the preferred choice for cementless total joint replacements. It is very important to produce a nanostructured bioactive metal implant with appropriate mechanical properties and we applied a chemical and thermal treatment that converts the surface of titanium alloy into bioactive surface. Therefore, bioactive Ti6Al7Nb might represent an alternative for advanced orthopedic implants under load-bearing conditions.

Eleven mini-pigs weighting around 50 kg, with free access to food pellets and water, were the experimental animals for this study. Ten of these pigs (one is the control) were anesthetized and after shaving, disinfection and draping, a straight 3 cm incision was made and the implants (plate and pin) were implanted into the epiphyses of the tibiae. Surgical procedures were performed bilaterally. At 6 months after implantation, the mini-pigs were sacrificed.

After sacrifice, the segments of the proximal tibia epiphyses containing the implanted plates and pins were cut of, fixed in phosphate-buffered formalin and dehydrated in serial concentrations of ethanol after which they were embedded in polyester resin and then cutted and grounded to a thickness of 75-100 μm. With these samples a lot of observations were made: Scanning Electron Microscopy observations, histological examination at implant surface and histological examination of the bone-implant surface and SEM-EDX examinations were also made.

All the results revealed that the plates and pins are in direct contact with newly formed bone without any intervening soft tissue layer. We regard osteoinductive ability of nanostructured Ti6Al7Nb as one of the advantages of this implant in consideration for clinical applications.

Several visualization schemes have been developed for imaging materials at the atomic level through atom probe tomography. The main shortcoming of these tools is their inability to parallel process data using multi-core computing units to tackle the problem of larger data sets. This critically handicaps the ability to make a quantitative interpretation of spatial correlations in chemical composition, since a significant amount of the data is missed during subsequent analysis. In addition, since these visualization tools are not open-source software there is always a problem with developing a common language for the interpretation of data. In this contribution we present results of our work on using an open-source advanced interactive visualization software tool, which overcomes the difficulty of visualizing larger data sets by supporting parallel rendering on a graphical user interface or script user interface and permits quantitative analysis of atom probe tomography data in real time. This advancement allows materials scientists a codesign approach to making, measuring and modeling new and nanostructured materials by providing a direct feedback to the fabrication and designing of samples in real time.

The world’s first hard x-ray FEL (XFEL), the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is operational, steadily producing mJ energy, <75 fs pulses of 1.5 Å x-rays (1012 photons per pulse), a billion times more intensity than any other X-ray source. XFELs have stimulated the shift from the use of x-rays to probe periodic structures, such as crystals, to imaging non-periodic structures using ultrabright x-ray pulses shorter than the time for required for the onset of damage. The international community has embraced the potential as additional XFELs are currently being constructed in Japan, Italy and Germany with many more already planned or in construction elsewhere. Here the recent efforts to extend x-ray microscopy to the nanoscale for airborne particles using diffract-and-destroy methods are reviewed. Projecting current experimental results to future facilities suggests that gains of more than 104 in data acquisition rates are possible by 2020. This projection emphasizes the need for the development of fast x-ray detectors, infrastructure investments to handle the rapid data rate and storage requirements, as well as the appropriate training of scientists to handle data interpretation. Further improvements in particle delivery methods are also necessary, in particular to reduce sample consumption and to provide orthogonal data channels for each individual particle imaged. The projected growth of single particle CXDI data rates show great promise for the field. However, to achieve the resolution required to solve many scientific problems tractable with single-shot imaging, improvements in the absolute number of photons per pulse in a given area are still necessary.

Simple NMR techniques can provide an absolute quantification of the quality of the orientational order of discotic columnar phases, provided the anisotropic local magnetic interactions are thoroughly characterized. For the prototypical discotic liquid crystal hexapentoxy-triphenylene, we measure the 13C chemical shift anisotropy of the triphenylene carbons, and use this result to analyze the orientational order, that occurs through a first order phase transition from the high temperature liquid phase, and is almost saturated (order parameter close to 0.85).

Nanotechnology is an area of research that is highly intriguing because of the novel properties often observed for materials whose sizes are reduced to the nanoscale. However, one of the biggest challenges is understanding the underlying principles that dictate the particles resulting properties. The atomic level structure for nanoparticles is suspected to vary from that for the corresponding bulk materials, however, direct observation of this phenomenon has proven difficult. Until recently only indirect information on the atomic level structure of such materials could be obtained with techniques such as XRD, HR-TEM, XPS, etc… However, recent advances in Transmission Electron Microscopy techniques now allow true atomic scale resolution, leading to definitive confirmation of the atomic structure. Namely, Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy coupled with a High-angle Annular Dark Field detector (STEM-HAADF) has been demonstrated to be capable of achieving a nominal resolution of 0.8 nm (the JEOL JEM-ARM200F instrument). The ability is highly exciting because it will lead to an enhanced understanding of the relationship between atomic structure of nanoparticles and the resulting novel properties. In our own study, we focus on the analysis of the atomic level structure for nanoparticles composed of bismuth, antimony and tellurium for thermoelectric materials. This area has recently received much interest because of the realization that nanotechnology can be employed to greatly enhance the efficiency (dimensionless figure of merit ZT) of this class of materials. One of the most intriguing parameters leading to the enhanced TE activity is the relationship between composition and structure that exists within individual nanoparticles. We report our results on a study of the atomic level structure for both nanowires and nanodiscs composed of bismuth, antimony and tellurium. It was found that the nanoparticles have a complex structure that cannot be elucidated by conventional techniques such as XRD or HR-TEM. In addition, by employing Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), a greater understanding of the composition-structure dependence was gained. The results are primarily discussed in terms of the atomic level resolution images obtained with the STEM-HAADF technique.

The use of carbon nanotubes (CNT) as interconnects in future integrated circuits (IC) is being considered as a replacement for copper. As this research needs also innovative metrology solutions, we have developed a combined approach for the plane-view analysis of CNT integrated in contact holes where transmission electron microscopy (TEM) enables the quantitative measurement of density and structure of the CNT and where scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM) is used to electrically map the distribution of the CNT. This paper explains the used methodologies in detail and presents results from 300 nm diameter contact holes filled with CNT of 8-12 nm in diameter and a density of about 2 x 1011 cm-2.