Mapping the local elastic properties of nanopatterned Ge


Mapping the local elastic properties of nanopatterned Ge

Bischoff, L.; Böttger, R.; Keller, A.; Facsko, S.

Due to their reduced dimensions, the mechanical properties of nanostructures may differ substantially from those of bulk materials. Quantifying and understanding the nanomechanical properties of individual nanostructures is thus of tremendous importance both from a fundamental and a technological point of view. We employed a recently introduced atomic force microscopy (AFM) mode, i.e., peak-force quantitative nanomechanical imaging, to map the local elastic properties of nanostructured germanium surfaces. This imaging mode allows for the quantitative determination of the Young’s modulus with nanometer resolution. Heavy-ion irradiation was used to fabricate different self-organized nanostructures on Ge surfaces. Depending on the sample temperature during irradiation, nanoporous sponge-like structures and hexagonally ordered nanodots are obtained. The sponge-like Ge surface is found to exhibit a surprisingly low Young’s modulus well below 10 GPa which furthermore depends on the ion energy. For the nanodot patterns, local variations in the Young’s modulus are observed: at moderate sample temperatures, the dot crests have a lower modulus than the dot valley whereas this situation is reversed at high temperatures. These observations are explained by vacancy dynamics in the amorphous Ge matrix during irradiation. Our results furthermore offer the possibility to tune the local elastic properties of nanostructured Ge surfaces by adjusting the ion energy and sample temperature.

Keywords: Nanostructures; Germanium; Youngs Modulus

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-18838
Publ.-Id: 18838