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The ability to deposit thin and conformal films has become of great importance because of downscaling of devices. However, because of nucleation difficulty, depositing an electrically stable and thin conformal platinum film on an oxide nucleation layer has proven challenging. By using plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) and TiO 2 as a nucleation layer, we achieved electrically continuous PEALD platinum films down to a thickness of 3.7 nm. Results show that for films as thin as 5.7 nm, the Mayadas-Shatzkes (MS) model for electrical conductivity and the Tellier-Tosser model for temperature coefficient of resistance hold. Although the experimental values start to deviate from the MS model below 5.7 nm because of incomplete Pt coverage, the films still show root mean square electrical stability better than 50 ppm over time, indicating that these films are not only electrically continuous but also sufficiently reliable for use in many practical applications.

Specimen preparation remains a practical challenge in transmission electron microscopy and frequently limits the quality of structural and chemical characterization data obtained. Prevailing methods for thinning of specimens to electron transparency are serial in nature, time consuming, and prone to producing artifacts and specimen failure. This work presents an alternative method for the preparation of plan-view specimens using isotropic vapor-phase etching with integrated etch stops. An ultrathin amorphous etch-stop layer simultaneously serves as an electron transparent support membrane whose thickness is defined by a controlled growth process such as atomic layer deposition with sub-nanometer precision. This approach eliminates the need for mechanical polishing or ion milling to achieve electron transparency, and reduces the occurrence of preparation induced artifacts. Furthermore, multiple specimens from a plurality of samples can be thinned in parallel due to high selectivity of the vapor-phase etching process. These features enable dramatic reductions in preparation time and cost without sacrificing specimen quality and provide advantages over wet etching techniques. Finally, we demonstrate a platform for high-throughput transmission electron microscopy of plan-view specimens by combining the parallel preparation capabilities of vapor-phase etching with wafer-scale micro- and nanofabrication., (Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The ability to efficiently and reliably transfer heat between sources and sinks is often a bottleneck in the thermal management of modern energy conversion technologies ranging from microelectronics to thermoelectric power generation. These interfaces contribute parasitic thermal resistances that reduce device performance and are subjected to thermomechanical stresses that degrade device lifetime. Dense arrays of vertically aligned metal nanowires (NWs) offer the unique combination of thermal conductance from the constituent metal and mechanical compliance from the high aspect ratio geometry to increase interfacial heat transfer and device reliability. In the present work, we synthesize copper NW arrays directly onto substrates via templated electrodeposition and extend this technique through the use of a sacrificial overplating layer to achieve improved uniformity. Furthermore, we infiltrate the array with an organic phase change material and demonstrate the preservation of thermal properties. We use the 3ω method to measure the axial thermal conductivity of freestanding copper NW arrays to be as high as 70 W m(-1) K(-1), which is more than an order of magnitude larger than most commercial interface materials and enhanced-conductivity nanocomposites reported in the literature. These arrays are highly anisotropic, and the lateral thermal conductivity is found to be only 1-2 W m(-1) K(-1). We use these measured properties to elucidate the governing array-scale transport mechanisms, which include the effects of morphology and energy carrier scattering from size effects and grain boundaries.

Substitutional solid solutions that exist in both ordered and disordered states will exhibit markedly different physical properties depending on their exact crystallographic configuration. Many random substitutional solid solutions (alloys) will display a tendency to order given the appropriate kinetic and thermodynamic conditions. Such order-disorder transitions will result in major crystallographic reconfigurations, where the atomic basis, symmetry, and periodicity of the alloy change dramatically. Consequently, the dominant scattering mechanism in ordered alloys will be different than that in disordered alloys. In this study, we present a hypothesis that ordered alloys can exhibit lower thermal conductivities than their disordered counterparts at elevated temperatures. To validate this hypothesis, we investigate the phononic transport properties of disordered and ordered AB Lennard-Jones alloys via non-equilibrium molecular dynamics and harmonic lattice dynamics calculations. It is shown that the thermal conductivity of an ordered alloy is the same as the thermal conductivity of the disordered alloy at ≈0.6T(melt) and lower than that of the disordered alloy above 0.8T(melt).