In-situ Thin Film and Nano Structure Characterization at ROBL

The last few years have seen an increasing interest in in-situ investigations on thin filmor nano structured systems. The advantages of these methods are clear: The (x-ray)investigations are done at the time of the phase or structure formation. Misleading results of ex-situ investigation due to altering or decomposition of the sample were avoided, metastable intermediate states were observed and additionally these experiments are less time consuming.The presented experiments were carried out at Material Research Station of the instrument BM20 at ESRF that is operated by the Forschungszentrum Dresden- Rossendorf. Our experimental station focuses on in-situ studies using different X-Ray diffraction and scattering methods in the energy range of 6 to 30 keV. The experiments can be combined with XRF and electrical resistivity measurements on demand. Two different topics of synthesis and processing are given. First, results on the formation of isolated Ge nano particles with well defined size by disproportion of germanium oxides in a silicondioxid matrix at higher temperatures of corresponding multilayer system were presented. Such materials are potential candidates for solar cells, extending the working spectral range for energy conversion. The size and ordering of the Ge nano crystallite can be controlled by the layer thicknesses as well as growth and annealing temperatures. Different in-situ growth techniques like reactive DC magentron sputtering of Si and RF- sputtering of SiO2 are compared. Secondly, the phase behavior of different metal catalyst onto different buffer layers for the carbon nanotube and graphene synthesis will be shown and discussed. Hereby diffraction experiments under controlled and reactive atmosphere were performed. As shown by in-situ investigations process were characterized on-line and structural as well as functional properties are correlated directly with each other. This increases the comprehension of synthesis and processing of functional materials.