European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings – serie

The symposium brought together more than a hundred attendees from many countries including a significant participation from Japan and other East-Asia countries. Many of the trends observed in the 1st Symposium held in 1996 were confirmed: displays are indeed the main application in LAE (photovoltaics were not included in the topics of this symposium) and active matrix display (AMLCD) is still the leading technology. Future AMLCDs integrating the display drivers onto the same substrate require much faster thin-film transistors (TFTs) than those used for LCD addressing, therefore putting a strong demand on polysilicon performances. As a consequence the quest for an improved low temperature, large area (and low cost) polysilicon process is intensive and the competitors, including direct plasma deposition and excimer laser crystallization of amorphous layers, are reporting significant steps forward. With the tremendous demand for efficient colour flat panel displays, other display technologies are gaining interest. Field emission display (FED) is one of them. FEDs based on amorphous tetrahedral carbon thin-films are stimulating intensive studies on the optoelectronic properties of this complex material.Large area pixellized sensors for x-ray radiography and document scanning is another field of application in LAE which has recently reached initial production. Using a TFT or diode pixel addressing similar to AMLCD, this kind of device benefits from most of the AMLCD technology. However these devices present an increased complexity and stringent specifications on noise which in turn means materials with improved electronic transport properties. Finally, LAE is a fast developing area in thin-film research and technology. Initially an all-silicon domain, it now involves a large range of thin-film semiconductors and dielectrics, whose properties need to be fully understood and for which flexible and efficient processes have still to be developed.

The activities of the semiconductor industry to introduce a new, large wafer diameter were triggered by expected potential overall savings - cost and resource - and an anticipated increasing demand for Silicon wafers. In the beginning, around 1994, agreement on the diameter of the next wafer generation had to be achieved and finally 300 mm was globally accepted to be the next wafer diameter, a decision obtained at international summits in 1994/1995, based on the work of a SEMI task force.

Several workshops on 300 mm wafers have been held by SEMI, JSNM and other organizations during the past few years. However, the present E-MRS conference on Techniques and Challenges for 300 mm Silicon: Processing, Characterization, Modeling and Equipment was the first international scientific conference about this subject.

The papers - invited as well as submitted - cover a wide range of subjects, financial issues, fab concepts, crystal growth, wafer process development, material and defect issues, wafer characterization and provide an excellent review of the present status of 300 mm technology.

Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) is a well established single-wafer technology in USLI semiconductor manufacturing and electrical engineering, as well as in materials science. The biggest advantage of RTP is that it eliminates the long-ramp-up and ramp-down times associated with furnaces, enabling a significant reduction in the thermal budget. Today, RTP is in production use for source/drain implant annealing, contact alloying, formation of refractory nitrides and silicides and thin gate dielectric (oxide) formation. The aim of Symposium I was to provide an overview of the latest information on research and development in the different topics cited above. The potential applications of RTP in new areas like large area devices such as flat planel displays and solar cells has to be investigated.

About 30 papers were presented in this symposium. The contributions of most interest involved modelling and control, junctions formation and thermal oxidation, deposition and recrystallisation and silicide formations. However, the range of topics and the intent to focus on underlying, fundamental issues like dopant diffusion in silicon from solid sources, strain relaxation and photonic effects, nucleation as well as applications to magnetic films and solar cells devices.

These proceedings contain the reviewed papers presented at the Symposium J on "Ion Implantation into Semiconductors, Oxides and Ceramics", which was held at the Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society in Strasbourg, France, 16-19, June 1998. The symposium attracted 110 contributions, with authors from 31 nations in 5 continents. It was thereby the largest in a series of E-MRS ion beam symposia, documenting the importance of ion beam techniques and research in this area.

The aim of this symposium was to provide a forum for the discussion of new results in the implantation of materials from three different classes: semiconductors, oxides and ceramics.

There have been great advances in our understanding and use of inorganic carbon in recent years, following the development of the vapour synthesis of diamond, the discovery of C60 molecule and the discovery of carbon nanotubes.This issue contains the papers from the Symposium K Carbon-based Materials for Microelectronics of the European Materials Research Society meeting which was held on 16-19 June 1998, Strasbourg, France. The symposium covered fullerenes, nanotubes, diamond and amorphous carbon. It was able to show the similarities between the sp2 and sp3 forms of carbon, and between the crystalline, nano-structured and amorphous forms. Carbon is unique in having such a range of covalently bonded forms. The symposium consisted of 34 oral papers, of which 10 were invited, and 35 poster papers. The papers in this proceedings cover many of the recent developments in carbon, for example the effect of doping on the electronic structure of nanotubes, the discovery of phosphorus doping of diamond, the surface structure and electronic structure of diamond, and the field emission properties of diamond and diamond-like carbon. The applications of carbon lag some way behind those of other materials, but the symposium highlighted the uses or potential of carbon in xerography, in field emission displays and in photoconductivity-based sensors and radiation detectors.

The Symposium on 'Nitrides and related wide band gap materials' at the 1998 Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) in Strasbourg, France, was the third Symposium of its kind at an E-MRS meeting. Beginning in 1996, these Symposia enjoyed a steadily increasing popularity among European and international nitride researchers.Contributions covered the areas of hetero-epitaxy, bulk growth, structural, electrical and optical characterisation and device fabrication. Researchers from about 20 different countries presented their work at this symposium. Naturally, most papers were from within Europe (Germany, France, Russia and the United Kingdom) but there was also a remarkable number of contributions from overseas (USA, Japan and Korea.)For about 5 years now, semiconducting group-III nitrides have attracted an enormous level of research activity all over the world. Essentially this was triggered by the breakthroughs achieved by Shuji Nakamura and his group in Japan, who succeeded in making highly efficient blue, green and yellow light emitting diodes as well as violet laser diodes based on A1GaInN. Since then, intensive research related to material growth, device development, as well as to the fundamental properties of these materials is being carried out.The outstanding contribution of Shuji Nakamura to this field was underlined by his plenary lecture during this E-MRS meeting. He presented his most recent progress towards amber LED's and long-lived violet laser diodes.

Symposium M of the 1998 annual meeting of the European Materials Research Society has been devoted to Molecular Photonics for Optical Communications: Materials, Physics and Device Technology. It was held in Strasbourg from 15-19 June, building on the sizable success of the former symposium Molecular Electronics and Photonics, held during the last 1997 E-MRS meeting. A total of 42 oral and 36 poster presentations were delivered at this symposium. A most remarkable common feature to almost all papers presented concerned a very broad approach which was given to this particular field of Materials Science, starting at the borderlines between chemistry and physics, photonics and electronics, from their most fundamental aspects all the way to technology and device engineering considerations.The manuscripts have been gathered in four main areas. First and foremost, we brought together the papers encompassing the growing area of Device Physics and Technology, to reflect the emphasis given during this symposium to the crucial application aspect of this theme of Materials Science. The second chapter presents the most recent advances achieved in the field of Luminescent Structures, which is one of the most active research areas in the field of (macro)molecular-based optoelectronics and lasing materials aiming at the realization of a polymer-based laser diode. The third chapter, demonstrates recent advances in the field of Photonic Structures, whereby the most recent achievements have been brought to the attention of the scientific community, particularly in the realms of photorefractive polymers and nonlinear integrated optics devices. Finally the fourth chapter presents a very basic understanding of Organic Solid State Properties, such as pertain to optically detected magnetic resonance or photo-conductivity studies.Among the foremost conclusions to be drawn from the papers in both oral and poster sessions, the huge progress which has been accomplished towards the fabrication of real devices stands-out as a most noteworthy feature: this clearly signals to the organic community and hopefully much beyond, that molecular materials and associated devices have matured considerably in terms of fabrication technologies, stability and lifetime issues, as well as for the fundamental understanding of their properties.

The European Materials Society decided to hold a Symposium entitled Materials and Processes for Submicron Technologies in June 16-19, 1998, within the yearly E-MRS Spring Meeting in Strasbourg, France. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the results of the advances in microelectronic devices directly relating to the reduction in size of features of the devices down to submicron size. When electronic materials are patterned to these small sizes, their physico-chemical properties show many aspects (interdiffusion, electromigration, etc.), many of these not well known yet. The articles presented in this volume, 28 in number, are representative of the 40 papers accepted for this particular E-MRS Meeting (Symposium N).

The symposium "UV, Blue and Green Light Emission fromSemiconductor Materials" was part of the European MaterialsResearch Society (E-MRS) Spring Meeting in Strasbourg, 4-7 June,1996 and it was arranged to bring together specialists in growth,characterization and device fabrication of materials suitable forvisible and UV optoelectronic applications. Although the mainemphasis was on the development of semiconductor diode lasers,work was also presented on the progress of frequently doublingtechniques which have an immediate application in commercialsystems. The proceedings are divided into Part I and Part IIreflecting the two streams of research based on II-VIsemiconductors on the one hand and III-V GaN based semiconductorson the other hand. Although these two areas are competingvigorously for the realization of practical blue laser diodes,there are many common problems, particularly with doping and also the need for suitable substrates for the growth of latticematched structures.

The invited talks were presented byspeakers from Japan, the USA and Europe with representation fromboth University and Industrial research groups. In particular,leaders in the development of blue lasers SONY (II-VI devices)and Nichia (GaN devices) provided important device papersalongside the excellent contributions on a wide range of topicscovering epitaxial growth, optical structural and electricalmeasurements as well as problems of compensation of dopants andlaser lifetimes.

The symposium "Nonlinear Optical andOptoelectronics Organic Materials" dealt with the development oforganic molecules and polymers as potential replacements forexisting materials in electronic, optoelectronics and nonlinearoptical devices.

These proceedings contain the majority of papers presented atSymposium D, "Group IV heterostructures, physics and devices(Si,Ge,C,&agr;-Sn)", of the Spring Meeting of the EuropeanMaterials Research Society, held at the Congress Centre,Strasbourg, France, 4-7 June 1996. This Symposium was attendedby about 150 scientists from throughout the world, among whom 18were invited speakers.

The aim of the Symposium was to discussthe most recent results in all fields of Group IVheterostructures and devices from fundamental physics toindustrial applications. Regular and invited contributions werethen welcomed which addressed the different aspects of growth,the effects of strain relaxation, particularly in SiGeC alloys,the basic optical and electrical properties of heterostructuresand low-dimensional structures, the microelectronic andoptoelectronics, such as rare-earth doping techniques, was alsoselected. Except for minor changes, the order of papers presentedin this special issue of Thin Solid Films closely follows theorder of topics listed above as well as the order of sessions atthe Symposium.

The Symposium on Magnetic Ultrathin Films, Multilayers andSurfaces, hosted by the European Materials Research Society, washeld at the Palais de la Musique et des Congré inStrasbourg, France on June 4-7, 1996. Its central theme was therelationship of magnetic properties and device performance tostructure at the nano and micrometer length scale. Research onthe magnetism of surfaces, ultrathin films and multilayers hasincreased dramatically during recent years. This development wastriggered by the discovery of coupling between ferromagneticlayers across nonmagnetic spacer layers and of the giantmagnetoresistance effect in systems of reduced dimension usingvarious micro and nanofabrication techniques has become a subjectof special interest. It is certainly the promising applicationpotential of these effects in new magnetic recording devicegeometries which causes this intensive research, which is doneboth by companies and at universities and researchinstitutes.

A selection of invited and contributed paperspresented at the Symposium and accepted for publication iscontained in this volume. The contents of these proceedings areorganized into seven sections.

A. Nanowires, Nanoparticles,Nanostructuring

B. Ultrathin Films and Surfaces,Characterization

C. Giant Magnetoresistance

D. Coupling,Tunneling

E. Growth, Structure, Magnetism

F. Growth,Structure, Magnetoresistance

G. Coupling, Magnetic processes,Magneto-optics.

The first four sections contain invited andoral contributed papers in the listed research domains, while thelast three sections contain the contributions presented duringthree large poster sessions.

The conference "Advanced Materials for Interconnections" took place in Strasbourg on 4-7 June 1996 hosted by the EMRS Society. Based on the recent trends in microelectronics the main topics of the conference were new materials for interconnects like special aluminum alloys, tungsten and copper as well as low k dielectric materials.64 Papers were presented at the conference and 51 of these are contained as full length papers within this volume of Microelectronic Engineering.The proceedings are divided into 5 chapters. Chapter 1 related to Metallization discusses cluster equipment for IC manufacturing, copper advanced technology, gap filling, mechanical reliability, deposition technology, electroless and electro-plating, copper metallization copper interconnects and patterning of aluminum. Chapter 2, Process Integration, discusses multilevel interconnect, study on thin-film SOI devices, wet cleanings, influence of material characteristics and deposition processes, copper contamination and metallization, plasma behaviour, CMP processes, sub-micron inverse metallisation, interconnect formation and mechanical polishing investigations. Chapter 3 covers Barriers, and chapter 4 studies, evaluates and monitors Dielectrics. The final chapter looks at modelling comparisons.

This special issue of Carbon, a collection of reviewed papers, was presented at Symposium A, Fullerenes and Carbon Based Materials at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997.

140 presentations were given at the conference in seven different sessions. The most extensively addressed research fields were carbon materials in general, diamond-like carbon, pristine, polymeric and endohedral fullerenes, nanotubes, and carbonitrides.

Of accepted manuscripts, the largest number of contributions is dedicated to carbon materials in general and to fullerenes. Highlights in the former are the discussions on hydrogen-free carbons and on hard carbon coatings. In the fullerenes group many new results on polymeric structures and on endohedrally-doped higher fullerenes are reported.

The field of carbon nanotubes is strongly represented with reports on new techniques for the production of the tubes and where the analyses by scanning probe microscopy and light scattering are the central problems. Carbonitrides as well as a few contributions from related molecular materials like cubanes or oligophenylenes are included.

The symposium proved to be a valuable venue where new scientific and technological problems in the field of new materials were reported.

The Symposium D, entitled Computational Modeling of Issues in Materials Science was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997.

Those who attended came from all five continents with participants coming from as far away as South Africa, Australia and Eastern Europe. There were 14 invited talks, 54 contributed papers, and 62 posters presented at the symposium.

Computational materials science has truly emerged as a field in itself. The range of phenomena studied and the variety of techniques used indicate that the subject has sufficiently matured that technologically relevant information can now be routinely extracted from computational modeling. These models increasingly use atomistic information from which macroscopic parameters may be determined.

Several papers showed that parallel computers will play a major role in the further development of the field. The Car-Parrinello method emerged as a workhorse for the most advanced simulations which the advent of faster hardware and diffusion of computer codes has brought within easy reach of many research groups. How to consistently go from the micro- to the macro-scale remains one of the great unsolved puzzles in computational materials science and was the subject of much discussion at the symposium. The interdisciplinary side of computational studies of matter was demonstrated in several talks, where authors borrowed methods from nuclear physics, fluid dynamics, and other subjects.

This was a very productive symposium with new collaborations started, many novel ideas generated and a large amount of information disseminated. The meeting gave an excellent idea of the status of computational materials service anno 1997.

This hardbound volume covers Symposia J 'Light-Weight Materials for Transportation' and E 'Material Aspects for Electric Vehicles including Batteries and Fuel Cells' which were presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997.

Modern materials are the basis for further progress in industry and in our life. Among them the light-advanced materials with desired ratios of weight/properties and cost/properties are of special value for transportation for almost all applications. Progress in this area depends on cooperation and development of metallurgy, casting and solidification techniques, plastic and superplastic deformation, heat and surface treatment. When dealing with common alloys there are well-defined materials with a wide data base available. However, designing materials based on composites still requires thorough research in order to establish data bases to avoid not only high costs, but also inefficient designs and less than optimal structures. But, however difficult and problematic the composites are they bear the inherent potential of new materials.

Materials science in the field of light materials is now transforming from an empirical approach to a more quantitative scientific stage. The revolution in materials has begun with the emergence of supercomputer simulation and computer-enhanced quantitative microscopic image analysis.

The advanced materials applied previously in the defence and aerospace area should expand over the commercial market including air transportation and civil engineering. The new generation of modern cars and trains as well as aircraft (Boeing 777) are good examples for the application of new materials.

Biomaterials: a forecast for the future, Pages 1419-1423 Larry L. Hench Abstract | PDF (145 K) ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- The war against junk science: the use of expert panels in complex medical-legal scientific litigation, Pages 1425-1432 Joseph M. Price and Ellen S.

Gallium Nitride and its alloys with InN and AlN, have recently emerged as important semiconductor materials with application to yellow, green, blue and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum as emitters, detectors and high temperature electronics. LEDs based on wide badgap GaN nitrides exhibit excellent longevity and brightness levels. Combined with red LEDs one can, for the first time, have full colour semiconductor displays.The 4 day symposium was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997, provided a forum for active nitride researchers covering the most recent developments in all areas of nitride semiconductors. Sessions focused on the aspects of epitaxial and bulk growth of GaN and its alloys, on optical properties and structural and electrical characterisation, quantum phenomena and light-emitting devices such as LEDs and laser diodes.