Visualizing the effects of plasma-generated H atoms <i>in situ</i> in a transmission electron microscope - Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés (LSI) Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue European Physical Journal: Applied Physics Année : 2022

Visualizing the effects of plasma-generated H atoms in situ in a transmission electron microscope

Résumé

The radicals and atoms generated by a plasma have the effect, among others, of changing the surface energies of materials, which allows one to prepare nano-objects that would not stabilise in other conditions. This is the case of the Sn catalysed silicon nanowires (NWs) we present in this paper: without plasma, the liquid Sn at the top of NWs is unstable (because Sn naturally wets the Si) so that no growth is allowed, while in presence of the H atoms generated by the plasma, the balance of surface energies is drastically changed; the Sn droplet stabilises and can be used efficiently by the vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism of growth. Thus, if one wants to study the growth mechanisms of such NWs in situ in the transmission electron microscope (TEM), one has to adapt a plasma system on the TEM. This is precisely what was done at École polytechnique on the NanoMAX environmental TEM. The paper reports on the plasma effects, on the catalyst and on NW growth, recorded in situ in real time, at atomic resolution. The results are discussed in the light of density functional calculations of bare and hydrogenated Si surface energies.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
ap210276.pdf (439.71 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte

Dates et versions

hal-03818184 , version 1 (17-10-2022)

Licence

Paternité

Identifiants

Citer

Jean-Luc Maurice, Pavel Bulkin, Éric Ngo, Weixi Wang, Martin Foldyna, et al.. Visualizing the effects of plasma-generated H atoms in situ in a transmission electron microscope. European Physical Journal: Applied Physics, 2022, 97, pp.7. ⟨10.1051/epjap/2022210276⟩. ⟨hal-03818184⟩

Relations

139 Consultations
83 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More