Publikationen

The present paper investigates the uniaxial compression behavior of highly alloyed, focused ion beam (FIB) manufactured micropillars, ranging from 200 up to 4000 nm in diameter. The material used was the Ni-based oxide-dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy Inconel MA6000. Stress-strain curves show a change in slip behavior comparable to those observed in pure fcc metals. Contrary to pure Ni pillar experiments, high critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) values were found independent of pillar diameter. This suggests that the deformation behavior is primarily controlled by the internal obstacle spacing, overwhelming any pillar-size-dependent mechanisms such as dislocation source action or starvation.

A silver galvanic displacement process on commercial aluminum foil has been carried out to produce cost-effective SERS substrates. The process is based on an extremely simple redox process where aluminum is oxidized while silver ions are reduced, yielding a final silver dendritic structure that offers a large surface area-to-volume ratio. XPS measurements confirmed the metallic nature of the formed dendrites. SERS substrates were fabricated by spreading of the dendrites on double side Scotch tape attached to a paper slide. Three different thiols were incubated to achieve SAM formation on the Ag dendrites and measured by Raman spectroscopy. The obtained spectra presented well resolved bands and provided valuable information regarding the orientation of the thiols. The high Raman intensity also demonstrates the high enhancement capacities of the produced silver structures. The overall method is cost-effective and allows the use of silver dendrite paste for the mass production of SERS-active substrates, including on flexible substrates and/or via screen printing.

Electroless plating of palladium on silicon has been developed, resulting in the formation of palladium films and nanoparticles. The deposition process has been monitored by atomic and Kelvin probe force microscopies (AFM/KPFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) in order to understand the deposition mechanism. A fabrication process is developed to yield a high density of Pd particles, while ensuring the formation of a palladium thin film underneath. The formed substrates have been used as amperometric sensors without further modification for the determination of hydrogen peroxide concentrations. The substrates are found to exhibit excellent linear electrocatalytic response down to the micromolar range and under an applied potential of 0.0 V, with the lowest quantifiable concentration of 1 µM. The simplicity in substrate fabrication coupled with the potential for integration in microfabrication processes, as well as the low applied potential needed in the measurements, offers the possibility of using the device in enzymatic biosensors with low interference signals.

Continuous core-shell nanofibers with poly(isoprene-block-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) (PI-b-PDMAEMA) block copolymer/polymer derived ceramic (PDC) precursor nanocomposites as cores enveloped in rigid polyacrylonitrile (PAN) shells were nanomanufactured using coaxial electrospinning. The cylindrical confinement imposed by the rigid shell led to ordered morphologies in the core not observed in bulk block copolymer nanocomposites.

An electrostatically actuated double-clamped cantilever beam test structure has been designed and fabricated to determine the adhesion forces between co-planar, impacting polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) surfaces. To examine the effect of apparent contact area, dimples of varying sizes have been included in the test structure. By measuring the cantilever beam profile, through optical interferometric methods, as a function of applied bias, the force of adhesion has been determined for various device geometries. The results reveal a weak dependence of adhesion on apparent contact area, rather than a linear dependence. Fabrication process artifacts, observed and discussed here, contribute to but do not suffice to explain this observed weak scaling. The results strongly suggest that contact on the micrometer scale between rough, rigid materials such as polysilicon involves only a few asperities.

The epitaxial growth of 3C-SiC films on Si(100) substrates is demonstrated using a two-step chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. A thin (50 nm) SiC buffer layer grown at 925 °C using 1,3-disilabutane is shown to enable the growth of a high crystalline quality epitaxial 3C-SiC film using methyltrichlorosilane at 1200 °C. The ability to deposit high-quality epitaxial film is traced to the suppression of void defects and to the improvement in film adhesion obtained by the deposition of the buffer layer at low temperature.

The effect of prior deformation on mechanical behavior as a function of size is investigated for body-centered cubic (bcc) molybdenum (Mo) pillars. Experiments were performed using focused ion beam (FIB) manufactured [0 0 1] and [2 3 5] Mo micro/nanopillars, which were compressed, re-FIB machined, and compressed again. Unlike in bulk materials, pre-straining has a negligible effect on stress-strain behavior of the pillars, suggesting that dislocation storage does not occur in small-scale bcc specimens. The prevailing mechanism behind the size effect is attributed to dislocation nucleation mechanisms.

This manuscript explores the possibility of exploiting polymer morphology (thermal or flow-induced) as materials inherent template, and domain-selective plasma etching as pattern developer, to obtain nanopatterned surfaces with different and controlled geometries, with a particular focus on nanofibrillar patterns. Oxidative plasma treatment of PET films has rendered patterned surfaces with different geometries depending on the crystallinity and orientation of the PET sample and plasma treatment time (or etching ratio). Homogeneous patterns with either randomly distributed or aligned nanofibrils with diameters between 20 and 40 nm and lengths up to 1 µm (after extensive etching) were observed depending on the sample pretreatment. Our results demonstrate the potential of oxidative plasmas as templateless nanopatterning technique and reveal a complex interplay between plasma etching parameters and polymer microstructure driving the pattern formation mechanism. These results open the possibility of fabricating gecko-inspired surfaces in a cost-effective manner.

Nanotribology explores the mechanical properties of materials at small length scales, where deviations from the scaling laws of macroscopic descriptions are observed. Atomic force microscopy is introduced as an important instrument in nanotribology for imaging friction contrasts on heterogeneous surfaces, for quantitative friction studies, and for the observation of single dislocation processes in plastic deformation. Recent experimental results for the frictional properties of carbon-based materials are discussed. Friction studies using microstructured surfaces are presented as an attempt to bridge the gap between nanotribological and macroscopic friction studies.

Structural and frictional properties of single-layer and bilayer graphene films on a SiC(0001) substrate are studied by means of atomic force microscopy with atomic resolution. Friction on single-layer graphene is found to be a factor of two larger than on bilayer films for a variety of experimental situations. The friction contrast is found not to originate in differences in structural properties, in lateral contact stiffness, or in contact potential. The transition from atomic stick-slip friction to a regime of ultralow friction is found to occur at normal loads of 40 nN when the tip-sample interaction potential approaches 0.1-0.2 eV.