Ion-assisted bottom-up nanostructuring of carbon-transition metal nanocomposite films: a GISAXS study


Ion-assisted bottom-up nanostructuring of carbon-transition metal nanocomposite films: a GISAXS study

Abrasonis, G.; Krause, M.; Buljan, M.; Wintz, S.; Zschornak, M.; Grenzer, J.

Nanocomposite materials become of ever increasing importance in numerous fields of science and technology such as tribology, plasmonics, spintronics, sensing, catalysis, including the strategic quest for renewable energies regarding photovoltaics, solar collectors or thermoelectrics. The macroscale properties of nanocomposite materials are strongly influenced by their nanoscale morphology. Therefore a control of this nanoscale morphology is of major importance.

Here we present a GISAXS study of C:Ni nanocomposite thin films grown by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD). IBAD combines Ar+ ion beam co-sputtering of a C-Ni target to produce film forming species with a simultaneous irradiation of the growing film with low energy (50-140 eV) Ar+ ions. Depending on the ion energy and metal content this leads to different 3D morphologies such as dispersed nanoparticles, tilted nanocolumns or spatially ordered compositional nanopatterns. These structures show their characteristic fingerprints in GISAXS patterns. A theoretical approach to reproduce such patterns will be presented. The results show that low energy ions provide a powerful means to induce the self-organizion leading to the formation of 3D compositional nanopatterns.

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-16589
Publ.-Id: 16589