There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The synthesis of massive arrays of monodispersed carbon nanotubes that are self-oriented on patterned porous silicon and plain silicon substrates is reported. The approach involves chemical vapor deposition, catalytic particle size control by substrate design, nanotube positioning by patterning, and nanotube self-assembly for orientation. The mechanisms of nanotube growth and self-orientation are elucidated. The well-ordered nanotubes can be used as electron field emission arrays. Scaling up of the synthesis process should be entirely compatible with the existing semiconductor processes, and should allow the development of nanotube devices integrated into silicon technology.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/283/5401/512.full.pdf

Self-Oriented Regular Arrays of Carbon Nanotubes and Their Field Emission Properties

The term photonic crystals appears because of the analogy between electron waves in crystals and the light waves in artificial periodic dielectric structures. During the recent years the investigation of one-, two-and three-dimensional periodic structures has attracted a widespread attention of the world optics community because of great potentiality of such structures in advanced applied optical fields. The interest in periodic structures has been stimulated by the fast development of semiconductor technology that now allows the fabrication of artificial structures, whose period is comparable with the wavelength of light in the visible and infrared ranges.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6354/16969/00781867.pdf

Photonic crystals

We demonstrate that a monolayer graphene membrane is impermeable to standard gases including helium. By applying a pressure difference across the membrane, we measure both the elastic constants and the mass of a single layer of graphene. This pressurized graphene membrane is the world's thinnest balloon and provides a unique separation barrier between 2 distinct regions that is only one atom thick.

/pdf/impermeable-atomic-membranes-from-graphene-sheets-xtis5huy2d.pdf

Impermeable atomic membranes from graphene sheets.

A large amount of work world-wide has been directed towards obtaining an understanding of the fundamental characteristics of porous Si. Much progress has been made following the demonstration in 1990 that highly porous material could emit very efficient visible photoluminescence at room temperature. Since that time, all features of the structural, optical and electronic properties of the material have been subjected to in-depth scrutiny. It is the purpose of the present review to survey the work which has been carried out and to detail the level of understanding which has been attained. The key importance of crystalline Si nanostructures in determining the behaviour of porous Si is highlighted. The fabrication of solid-state electroluminescent devices is a prominent goal of many studies and the impressive progress in this area is described.

The structural and luminescence properties of porous silicon

We studied the growth of amorphous (a-Si:H,F) and of microcrystalline (μc-Si) silicon over trench patterns in crystalline silicon substrates. All deposited films show elbows at the trench mouth and are uniformly thick on the trench walls. Therefore, surface diffusion is not important. The results of a Monte-Carlo simulation suggest that film growth is controlled by a single growth species with a low sticking coefficient plus a highly reactive etching species.

Mechanism of microcrystalline silicon growth from silicon tetrafluoride and hydrogen

a-Si and μc-Si were grown from SiF4 with H2 dilution in a DC glow discharge. The crystallinity of films deposited over a range of substrate temperatures and SiF4/H2 flow ratios was studied by Raman spectroscopy and the boundary between microcrystalline and amorphous Si was determined. We find that μc-Si can be grown from SiF4 with less H2 dilution than from SiH4. In the SiF4/H2 system, the etching by of F atoms appears responsible for μc-growth; H atoms play an important role in balancing growth and etching reactions.

a-Si and μc-Si Grown from SiF4 with High H2 Dilution in a DC Glow Discharge

A femtosecond, tunable color center laser was used to conduct degenerate pump-probe transmission spectroscopy of thin film low temperature grown molecular beam epitaxy In0.53Ga0.47As samples. Low temperature molecular beam epitaxy In0.53Ga0.47As exhibits a growth-temperature dependent femtosecond optical response when probed near the conduction band edge. Below Tg=250°C, the optical response time of the material is subpicosecond in duration, and we observed induced absorption, which we suggest is due to the formation of a quasi-“three-level system”.

Femtosecond optical response of low temperature grown In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As

The etching of a-Si:H by H radicals in Hg-sensitized photo-CVD is studied as a function of deposition temperature, etch temperature and film hydrogen content. For films deposited at the same temperature, etch rates increased as etch temperature decreased from 230°C to 100°C and were temperature independent for temperatures between 100°C and 40°C. Etch rate increased with decreasing deposition temperature, but did not change when hydrogen content was varied by changing pressure and dilution. Under conditions producing high etch rates, microcrystalline films of Si:B:H and SiGe:H were prepared at temperatures as low as 100°C.

Temperature dependence of H radical etching in the deposition of microcrystalline silicon alloy thin films by HG-sensitized photo-CVD

Transistor scaling alone can no longer be relied upon to yield the exponential speed increases we have come to expect from the microprocessor industry. The principle reason for this is the interconnect bottleneck, where the electrical connections between and within microprocessors are becoming, and in some cases have already become, the limiting factor in overall microprocessor performance. Optical interconnects have the potential to address this shortcoming directly, by providing an inter- and intrachip communication infrastructure that has both greater bandwidth and lower latency than electrical interconnects, while remaining safely within size and power constraints. In this paper, we review the requirements that a successful optical interconnect must meet, as well as some of the recent work in our group in the area of slow-light photonic crystal devices for on-chip optical interconnects. We show that slow-light interferometric optical modulators in photonic crystal can have not only high bandwidth, but also extremely compact size. We also introduce the first example of a multichannel slow light platform, upon which a new class of ultracompact optical devices can be built.

/pdf/slow-light-with-photonic-crystals-for-on-chip-optical-38uahf8ee3.pdf

Philippe M. Fauchet

Papers

Mechanism of microcrystalline silicon growth from silicon tetrafluoride and hydrogen

a-Si and μc-Si Grown from SiF4 with High H2 Dilution in a DC Glow Discharge

Femtosecond optical response of low temperature grown In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As

Temperature dependence of H radical etching in the deposition of microcrystalline silicon alloy thin films by HG-sensitized photo-CVD

Slow Light with Photonic Crystals for On-Chip Optical Interconnects