Al-Induced Crystallization of Amorphous Ge and Formation of Fractal Ge Micro-/Nanoclusters

Results on Al-induced crystallization of amorphous Ge (a-Ge) deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation techniques under thermal annealing in N2 atmosphere are presented in detail. The a-Ge crystallization and fractal Ge pattern formation on the free surface of annealed Al/Ge bilayer films deposited on single-crystal Si (100) substrates were investigated by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), and Raman spectra. It is found that the temperature field effects play an extremely crucial role in a-Ge crystallization and fractal Ge formation process. The open branched structure of fractal Ge clusters in Al/Ge bilayer films was effectively prepared by Al-induced crystallization when they were annealed at 400 °C for 60 min. These films with fractal Ge clusters exhibit charming noninteger dimensional nanostructures, which differ from those of conventional integer dimensional materials such as one-dimensional nano...