Recent Developments in Thin Film Research: Epitaxial Growth and Nanostructures, Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction: Volume 69(Volume 69 European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)

The ICAM'97 symposium on "Recent Developments in Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction of Thin Film Structures" was held in Strasbourg. More than 60 participants representing 10 countries met to discuss the recent developments related to the study of crystalline structure of thin films: first stages of growth, morphology, strains and their relaxation. The aim of this symposium was to discuss the applications of both electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction in thin film studies. X-ray diffraction is a non-destructive method giving very accurate information in reciprocal space for the determination of crystalline data. Many of the contributions were concerned with following such growth processes such as epitaxy of metals and semiconducting materials, measuring the average strain and the structure and the morphology of the films. The electron microscopy investigations allows the study of microstructures and crystalline defects. The main handicap is the necessity for the destruction of the specimens. Electron microscopy is useful for studying the randomly distributed failures in periodicity of crystalline structures.

Table of Contents:
Part headings, chapter headings and selected papers: Part 1. Growth Methods and Kinetics. STM study on silicon(001) grown by magnetron sputter epitaxy (B. Vögeli et al.). Simulation. Monte Carlo simulation of mismatch relaxation and island coalescence during heteroepitaxial growth (M. Djafari Rouhani et al.). Nanoparticles and Dots. Structural and optical studies of CdS nanocrystals embedded in silicon dioxide films (A.G. Rolo et al.). Atomic Scale Characterization. Surface waves as a tool for the study of phase transition of nanoparticles (P. Cheyssac et al.). Semiconductor Interfaces and Quantum Wells. Formation of epitaxial HoSi2 layer on Si(100) (G. Petö et al.). Metallic Thin Layers. Studying interfaces on a nm scale by BEEM (T. Meyer et al.). HT Superconductors and Metalloxides. Epitaxial piezoelectric PZT thin films obtained by pulsed laser deposition (P. Verardi et al.). Part 2. X-Ray Analysis of Strain in Thin Films. Fine interference effects in X-ray diffraction from multilayered structures (E. Zolotoyabko). X-Ray Analysis of Crystalline Structure. Lattice parameter change in submicron Si whiskers (A.I. Klimovskaya et al.). TEM Analysis of Crystalline Structure. Transmission electron microscopy of thin-film transistors on glass substrates (K. Tsujimoto et al.). Image Processing and HREM. Microstructure imaging of the YBCO thin film/MgO substrate interface: HRTEM and Fourier analysis of the Moiré fringe pattern (S.Auzary et al.). Combined TEM and X-Ray of Thin Films Analysis. Investigation of chemical ordering in MBE-grown Co xPt1 - x films by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (M. Maret et al.).

About the Author :
Dr. Srinivasa Ranganathan is NASI Platinum Jubilee Fellow at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His academic career as an educator and researcher in metallurgy for the past four decades at the Banaras Hindu University and the Indian Institute of Science has been stellar. He has made significant contributions to our understanding of the structure of interfaces, quasicrystals, bulk metallic glasses and nanostructured materials. He has co-authored a book on New Geometries for New Materials.