Papers by Author: Christophe Detavernier

Abstract: Post-irradiation data on the neutron-induced swelling behaviour and resistivity changes in silicon carbide often does not show a clear trend. This makes a quantitative comparison between different studies difficult. To address the diverging results after irradiation in different studies, a thorough reference study is performed on high quality β-silicon carbide. The results show the response to neutron irradiation may be significantly influenced by structural defects present before irradiation. These findings open a way to improve the accuracy of silicon carbide irradiation temperature monitors.

Abstract: The texture of thin films, originating from a solid state reaction between a deposited film and a single crystal substrate is investigated. The relation between the phase formation and texture is analyzed for a number of these systems, such as Co/Si, Ni/Si or Co/Ge, where a metal film is allowed to react with a semiconductor single crystal substrate during heating and a summary of these results in presented in this article. It was found that the texture of the resulting films can be very complex, consisting of a variety of simultaneously occurring texture components such as epitaxy, fiber and axiotaxy texture. The close connection between the phase formation and texture is demonstrated by the fact that even a small intervention in either one, can have a huge effect on the resulting phase and/or its texture. From this, we show that the effect of the addition of ternary elements (e.g. Pt, W, C) to the thin films can only be understood if one considers its effects on both the kinetics and the thermodynamics of the reactions, as well as on the texture of the phases. We show how this can be used to influence technologically important properties of the films, such of formation temperature or stability.

Abstract: In this paper, the deep levels occurring in Fe- or Co-germanide Schottky barriers on ntype Ge have been studied by Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS). As is shown, no traps have been found for germanidation temperatures up to 500 oC, suggesting that in both cases no marked metal in-diffusion takes place during the Rapid Thermal Annealing (RTA) step. Deep acceptor states in the upper half of the Ge band gap and belonging to substitutional Co and Fe can be detected by DLTS only at higher RTA temperatures (TRTA). For the highest TRTA, deep levels belonging to other metal contaminants (Cu) have been observed as well. Simultaneously, the reverse current of the Schottky barriers increases with TRTA, while the barrier height is also strongly affected.