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Since SiC is hard and brittle, dicing by normal grinding process not only requires a long time for processing, but also reduces chip strength due to microcracks. The use of highly efficient and damage-free etching with high-pressure plasma as a chemical processing method for dicing rather than mechanical processing was investigated. The results of groove processing using a combination of a metal mask with slit-like apertures and plasma etching with high-pressure SF6 plasma showed that the processing speed decreased with decreasing slit width and increasing groove depth. The results of electrostatic field calculations suggest that this is due to a decrease in plasma intensity caused by electric field decreasing.

By illuminating matter with bright and intense light, researchers gain insights into material composition and properties. In the regime of extremely short wavelengths, X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) with exceptional peak brilliance have unveiled crucial details about the structures, dynamics and physics of various materials. Although X-ray focusing optics to enhance the intensity have progressed, achieving a single-nanometre focal spot that fully exploits the source performance remains elusive. Aberrations arising from reflective optical schemes noticeably degrade the focal spot, even in the presence of inevitably slight angular transition and pointing errors. Here we present an approach that directly forms a source image in an extremely small focal spot, achieving 7 nm focusing, in both transverse dimensions, of 9.1 keV XFELs with the extremely high intensity of 1.45 × 1022W cm−2. This was made possible by a scheme combining concave and convex X-ray mirrors with suppressed aberrations and high angular tolerances. The attained highly intense X-rays, surpassing the previous intensity by a hundred-fold, induced the vigorous ionization of chromium, suggesting the creation of solid-density heavy bare atomic nuclei. Our results, which demonstrate the realization of stable ultraintense XFEL beams by forming demagnified source images, hold immediate significance to a wide range of research fields, including atomic, molecular and optical physics and high-energy-density sciences.

Aluminum alloys are increasingly being applied to automobile bodies to reduce the weight of automobiles. In joining steel materials and aluminum alloys using resistance spot welding(RSW), it is important to control the state of intermetallic compounds due to the temperature at the joining interface. In other words, in RSW of Fe/Al dissimilar materials, it is necessary to clarify the heating and cooling phenomena of the interface temperature during joining. Although the convection behavior of the molten aluminum alloy is thought to influence the temperature distribution at the joining interface, there are no studies that have directly observed this phenomenon. In this study, convection in molten zone of aluminum alloy during RSW of steel and aluminum alloy is discussed. Direct observations were attempted in order to clarify the convection behavior of the molten aluminum alloy in RSW of steel and aluminum alloy. The main feature of this experiment is that a real-scale test piece and an RSW apparatus used in actual production were used to observe convection during actual production. The observation experiments were conducted using synchrotron radiation X-ray at SPring-8. During welding, the specimens were irradiated with synchrotron radiation X-ray, and convection was observed from the behavior of tracer particles placed on the specimens. As a results, three types of convection were observed: radial outward convection from the center of the molten zone at the joining interface, convection from the edge of the molten zone toward its center, and weak circulating convection at the edge of the molten zone. And, small convection velocities were generated at the edge of the molten zone. Furthermore, the convection velocity inside the molten zone was calculated to be approximately 1.75 m/s. In addition, it was shown that there is a correlation between convection behavior and the shape of the molten zone.

X-ray full-field microscopy is a promising method for nondestructive observation of opaque materials because it can attain a high resolution and wide field of view without sample scanning. We recently developed hard x-ray objective optics, which are key devices for full-field microscopy, based on total-reflection mirrors with high throughput and achromatic properties. The objective optics consist of two types of advanced Kirkpatrick–Baez mirrors configured as crossed one-dimensional Wolter type I and type III optics. The designed optics possessed magnification factors of 42–45 with a compact camera length of approximately 2 m. The hard x-ray full-field microscope based on this system was tested at the BL29XU beamline at SPring-8. We were able to resolve 100-nm periods (50-nm line widths) of a resolution test chart at a photon energy of 15 keV over 30 h, which demonstrated the remarkable stability of this system. The image quality was preserved over a wide photon energy range from 9 to 15 keV. A periodic dot pattern with dot diameters of 300 nm, formed on a 775-µm-thick Si substrate, was three-dimensionally visualized by computed tomography.

We developed a new etching technique using plasma generated at high pressure up to 9 atm. Operating at 9-atm pressure with a 30-μm-diameter wire electrode, we demonstrated the generation of well-ordered plasma at a narrow gap of ∼10 μm between the electrode and workpiece, and realized a high spatial resolution of <40 μm during processing. This technique should allow for the processing of high-precision X-ray crystal optical devices with compact and complex structures, such as a micro channel-cut crystal monochromator with an extremely narrow (sub-100 μm width) groove for realization of Fourier-transform-limited X-ray lasers with high intensity.

A red InGaN-based nanocolumn micro μLED with an emission diameter of ϕ2.2 μm was demonstrated to achieve an on-wafer external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 2.1% at the peak wavelength of 615 nm. The LED was fabricated by repeating the electrode process on the same nanocolumn pattern area and reducing the emission diameter from ϕ80 to ϕ2.2 μm. The peak EQE, which was maximized at ∼25 A cm−2, increased by decreasing the emission diameter from 1.2% to 2.1%. This behavior, which differs from that of InGaN-film LEDs, is characterized as a unit of independent nano-LEDs with passivated sidewalls of nanocolumn LEDs.

We propose the use of two pairs of concave–convex mirrors as imaging optics for the compact full-field x-ray microscope with high resolution and magnification factors. The optics consists of two pairs of hyperbolic convex and elliptical concave mirrors with the principal surface near the object, consequently enabling the focal length to be 10 times shorter than conventional advanced Kirkpatrick–Baez mirror optics. This paper describes characteristics of the optics calculated by ray-tracing and wave-optical simulators. The expected spatial resolution is approximately 40 nm with a wide field of view of more than 10 μm and a total length of about 2 m, which may lead to the possibility of laboratory-sized, achromatic, and high-resolution full-field x-ray microscopes.

Atmospheric-pressure plasma etching of a gallium nitride (GaN) substrate using hydrogen radicals instead of chlorine radicals was investigated toward the backside thinning of GaN vertical power devices to reduce on-resistance. As a basic experiment, a pipe-shaped electrode was placed facing the GaN substrate to generate atmospheric-pressure plasma of a gas mixture of helium and hydrogen and high-speed etching of approximately 4 μm min−1was achieved. Although many spherical Ga metal particles were observed on the surface after processing, the addition of oxygen gas was found to be able to suppress them.

In order to advance the mass production of graphene devices, it is beneficial to avoid the difficulty graphene transfer process. Direct precipitation of graphene using a tungsten capping layer is convenient for this purpose, and is quite simple and compatible with conventional semiconductor fabrication processes. In this study, multilayer graphene was directly precipitated on a wafer of GaN-based blue LEDs to form a transparent electrode. The fabricated LED exhibited superior I-V characteristics and emitted blue luminescence around the probe of the electrode.

In this study, the direct growth of multilayer graphene from amorphous carbon on a sapphire (0001) substrate by precipitation using a nickel catalyst layer and a tungsten capping layer was examined. The findings revealed that a tungsten carbide layer was formed on top of the catalyst, and this suppressed the diffusion of carbon atoms upwards towards the surface. This caused the graphene layer to precipitate below the catalyst layer rather than above it. Under optimized growth conditions, Raman spectroscopy indicated that a high-quality graphene layer was formed with a low D/G peak intensity ratio of 0.10.