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E Chason

Publications and source records attributed to E Chason.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

Origin of compressive residual stress in polycrystalline thin films.

We present a model for compressive stress generation during thin film growth in which the driving force is an increase in the surface chemical potential caused by the deposition of atoms from the vapor. The increase in surface chemical potential induces atoms to flow into the grain boundary, creating a compressive stress in the film. We develop kinetic equations to describe the stress evolution and dependence on growth parameters. The model is used to explain measurements of relaxation when growth is terminated and the dependence of the steady-state stress on growth rate.

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Nonclassical smoothening of nanoscale surface corrugations.

We report the first experimental observation of nonclassical morphological equilibration of a corrugated crystalline surface. Periodic rippled structures with wavelengths of 290-550 nm were made on Si(001) by sputter rippling and then annealed at 650-750 degrees C. In contrast to the classical exponential decay with time, the ripple amplitude Alambda(t) followed an inverse linear decay, Alambda(t)=Alambda(0)/(1+klambdat), agreeing with a prediction of Ozdemir and Zangwill. We measure the activation energy for surface relaxation to be 1.6+/-0.2 eV, consistent with the fundamental energies of creation and migration on Si(001).

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Novel SiGe island coarsening kinetics: ostwald ripening and elastic interactions

Real-time light scattering measurements of coherent island coarsening during SiGe/Si heteroepitaxy reveal unusual kinetics. In particular, the mean island volume increases superlinearly with time, while the areal density of islands decreases at a faster-than-linear rate. Neither observation is consistent with standard considerations of Ostwald ripening. Modification of the standard theory to incorporate the effect of elastic interactions in the growing island array reproduces the observed behavior.

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