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Quantum Physics Division

Technical Highlights

  • Kinetic-Energy-Enhanced Etching of Silicon. The conditions required to sustain high rates of semiconductor etching typically consist of thermal heating, ion bombardment, and a combination of radical and neutral chemically active species. Ion bombardment serves to erode the surface and eject product molecules, providing fresh material for additional chemical attachment, as well as producing the anisotropy in the materials removal process. However, potentially damaging effects of the dry process plasma etching steps will be a critical issue when gate oxides of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices shrink to 5 nm thicknesses. Thus there is considerable recent interest in the possibility of supplying energy for the etching process in the form of neutral-species kinetic energy.

    In NIST laboratories, the effects of kinetic energy enhancements of neutral chlorine species are studied in a beam-scattering arrangement. A novel laser vaporization source produces a pulsed beam of chlorine molecules with kinetic energies from near-thermal to 6 eV. This source was used recently to study the scattering fraction of chlorine on clean and chlorinated silicon, and etching products were detected as a function of chlorine coverage during exposure to the hyperthermal beam. SiClX products are observed that result from sustained etching of Si(100) at room temperature, especially when a significant fraction of the hyperthermal beam has energy above 3 eV. The SiCl3 product species exhibits an enhanced yield for room temperature silicon and is ejected from the substrate surface with >0.5 eV kinetic energy, suggesting a mechanism of direct release of the SiCl3 species by nearby impact of an incident high energy species.
  • Laser Flux Monitor for GaAs Growth. With increasing demand for more complex semiconductor devices, there is a need for new methods to monitor the film growth process to provide better feedback control. Optical sensing is desirable because of the noninvasive nature of the detection and the ease to derive feedback control signals. One such NIST invention is the laser single photon ionization probe method to monitor the gaseous fluxes during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth and processing. This method has been applied to the layer by layer growth of GaAs, and will soon be applied in a collaboration with a company to silicon MBE. The method utilizes the 9th harmonic of a commercially available Nd:YAG laser at 118 nm to ionize the gaseous species. The ions are extracted into a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, and the incident or scattered fluxes are monitored by integrating the signals from the desired masses on each laser pulse. Real-time detection with 0.1 second response time is possible.

    Recently, the laser probe method was coupled with Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) measurements of the layer-by-layer growth of GaAs to provide an excellent measure of the correlation between the growth rate and the real time observations of the arsenic incorporation. The uptake of arsenic is monitored with the laser probe by summing the changes in the signals from both arsenic dimer and tetramer, and the RHEED spectrometer is used to simultaneously monitor the rate of layer-by-layer growth. The correlated measurements permit the precise layer-by-layer growth rate to be assigned in situ from noninvasive laser determinations for the first time. In a new collaboration with SVT Associates, the laser flux monitor method will be developed for commercial feedback control of silicon epitaxy.
  • Scanning Tunneling Microscope Measurements. The development of photovoltaic and microelectronic devices based on thin films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is progressing rapidly. While a-Si:H films are grown by a variety of techniques in research laboratories, most devices are made by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The electrical properties of these films vary substantially depending upon the growth technique and system used. While in many cases growth systems are optimized by electrical measurements of the films produced, models of the film growth should help improve film quality. The inhomogeneity in a-Si:H films may be one of the key issues in understanding the properties of these films, including their degradation.

    A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been used to study the topology of the surface of device-quality, hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited by rf discharge from silane or "hot wire" CVD. The STM provides very high resolution topological data on specific areas of the film surface, allowing measurement of slopes and indications of void formation. The a-Si:H surface grown in a PECVD chamber directly connected to an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) analysis chamber was studied and compared to device quality samples produced in different laboratories and transferred in air. Thin films (10 nm) representing early growth stages appear significantly smoother than the thicker films. The topology of thick films (>50 nm) has large variations over individual samples. While many regions can be characterized as "rolling hills," atomically flat areas are sometimes observed nearby. In most regions the observed slopes were 10 % or less from the horizontal, but some steep-sided valleys, indicating incipient voids, are seen. Overall surface roughness measured on sub-micron areas of the films is very inhomogeneous. Uniformity of the device quality films grown off site was much better, although no atomically flat regions were observed.
  • Femtosecond Wave Packet Dynamics in Lithium Dimer. The behavior of molecules prepared by ultrafast lasers and with coherent control represents an important new area of active manipulation of materials. Recently, for example, it was demonstrated at the National Research Council in Ottawa that the direction of photocurrents in semiconductor quantum wells can be manipulated with coherent light fields. At NIST, a new capability has been established in ultrafast laser coherent wave packet dynamics measurements, and a first series of rovibrational wave packet dynamics experiments was performed on a "shelf" state, in Li2. This shelf state is unique in that the electronic structure is covalent on the inner turning point but ionic at the outer turning point. The strong transition from covalent to ionic suggests the possibility of measuring such novel effects as the ionization probability versus internuclear separation in real time.

    Figure 1

    Figure 1. (a) Wave packet recurrences in Li2. (b) Fourier analysis of a 120 ps scan of the wave packet beats.
    The resulting wave packet "beats" are shown in Figure 1 together with the Fourier spectrum. The complicated beat pattern results from the fact that at least three vibrational levels, each with two widely spaced rotational states, are prepared coherently. The Fourier spectrum indicates at least eleven of the expected beat frequencies. Polarization experiments were performed to assemble the magic angle results, which permit the vibrational coherences to be observed independently of the pure rotational and rotational-vibrational coherences. These results establish a new capability, which is presently being extended to ultrafast studies in the solid state with scanned probe microscopy as the detection.
  • Evaporative Cooling: A Major Breakthrough in Push Towards BEC. NIST and JILA scientists are undertaking an experimental and theoretical effort to observe and understand Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC). This year they realized a major scientific advance: for the first time, trapped alkali atoms were cooled evaporatively.

    The advance was made possible by a new kind of magnetic trap invented at JILA - a Time-averaged, Orbiting Potential (TOP) trap. The TOP trap combines very tight confinement with very long lifetimes such that the evaporative process has time to take effect. A radio frequency magnetic field is used to induce evaporation by driving the hottest atoms out of the trap. The remaining atoms reequilibrate at lower temperatures. During the course of evaporation the coordinate-space density increases by a factor of two, and the temperature decreases by a factor of 80 µK (to 200 µK), for a net phase space density increase of three orders of magnitude. Further condensation causes the evaporation to taper off because the collision rate decreases by a factor of four, so the evaporation rate no longer progresses rapidly enough to outpace loss due to background gas collisions. Models of the evaporative cooling process in the TOP trap show that either an increase of the initial collision rate or a decrease in the background pressure by a factor of two will bring the system over the threshold of "runaway evaporation." Under these conditions, evaporation causes the elastic collision rate to increase, which in turn improves the efficiency of evaporation, leading to a situation of rapidly accelerating phase space density. The model predicts that the system will follow a trajectory through density-temperature space which intersects the predicted BEC transition at 3 × 1012 atoms/cc and 50 nK. The best available estimates for two- and three-body inelastic processes indicate that at the phase transition boundary the ratio of good to bad collisions is a comfortable factor of 5000. In short, all indications are that only modest improvements in the apparatus should be necessary to reach BEC. The very cold dense atoms attainable by evaporation will be ideal for improved metrology and novel quantum optics experiments.
  • First Atoms Guided by Light Through a Hollow Fiber. Recently, optical forces were used to guide atoms through a hollow glass fiber. Last year, in collaboration with scientists in the Atomic Physics Division, the intensity pattern of the evanescent fields of an optical mode that propagates in an annulus about the hollow core was calculated. The laser light is tuned to the blue side of an atomic resonance and repels atoms from the high intensity evanescent wave along the fiber walls. In this way atoms can pass through a long hollow fiber without sticking to the walls.

    The preliminary experiment on Rb atoms was a variation of the guiding concept. A red-detuned laser beam was coupled into the 40 µ diameter hollow core, rather than into the annular ring. The fiber acts like an atom hose, spanning 2 cm of open air to join two vacuum systems. One chamber contains neutral Rb at room temperature, the other a hot-wire detector in ultra-high vacuum. As the atoms emerge from fiber into the UHV chamber, they are detected on the hot-wire. The hot wire was located 1 cm from the opening of the fiber, in what amounts to the "far-field" region of the emerging atoms. The hot-wire was translated transverse to the fiber axis to map out the transverse momentum distribution of the guided atoms. The average transverse momentum was such that the atoms bounce from the walls an average of 12 times as they propagate through the 3 cm fiber.

    Figure 2

    Figure 2. Flux of Rb atoms optically guided through the flexible, hollow glass fiber, plotted versus detuning of the guiding laser field.
    The guided atom flux (Figure 2) shows the expected sharp dependence on laser frequency, turning on sharply for detunings slightly to the red of resonance. Even without making use of any transverse cooling, the fiber could be very useful in nanofabrication applications. Controlled by a three-axis micromanipulator and operating in a "near-field" mode, the fiber could deposit atoms directly onto a substrate. If the fiber is drawn down to a very thin tip similar to those used in near-field scanning optical microscopy, the lines of atoms "drawn" by the fiber could be suitably thin and readily tapered in depth, an effect very hard to achieve by conventional lithographic means.
  • Absolute Optical Frequency Measurements of Stabilized Nd:YAG Laser and Fiber Transport. The Nd:YAG laser can be efficiently doubled into the green at 532 nm where a number of strong absorption bands of I2 are located. Use of NIST's patented "modulation transfer" technique has led to laser stabilization below 10-13 for times as short as 0.1 sec (Figure 3). Of fundamental importance to metrology is the system's independent frequency reproducibility which has been shown to be ~300 Hz (5 × 10-13), nearly 50-fold better than that of the ubiquitous HeNe/I2 stabilized "standard" laser. A joint effort between JILA and NIST Time and Frequency Division colleagues has recently led to the first frequency measurement for these green stabilized laser frequencies, yielding f(a10) = 563 260 223.480 MHz ± 70 kHz. This is for the a10 hyperfine component of the R(56) 32-0 band in 127I2. The method is based on a combination of optical frequencies in two nonlinear optical crystals which perform the frequency-doubling and -addition functions. The standards employed were the HeNe/I2 red laser which was frequency doubled and compared with the sum frequency of the Nd green and a Ti:Sapphire laser locked onto the D2 resonance transition in Rb at 780 nm. Inaccuracy of ± 60 kHz in this latter frequency reference limited the accuracy of the measurement at first to ± 70 kHz. By using a higher microwave driving frequency (91 GHz) for the Schottky diode mixer, it is now feasible to measure the stable green reference relative to a well-determined two-photon transition at 778 nm in the same Rb atomic system. This transition has been accurately measured (± 5 kHz) by colleagues in Paris (and does not suffer from the "interesting" phenomena which affect accurate realization of the Rb D2 reference), so a final accuracy of ~20 kHz may be possible.

    Figure 3

    Figure 3. Allan variance per laser from beat between independent frequency-doubled Nd:YAG lasers.
    As a byproduct of considering means to transfer the NIST frequency standard between the JILA building and NIST, 1 km distant, a new optical-fiber-laser frequency transfer scheme was invented and demonstrated which can transfer optical frequencies with milliHertz uncertainty. It was discovered that 25 m of ordinary sheathed mono-mode polarization-maintaining fiber can introduce a tremendous amount of noise onto an otherwise phase-stable light beam: more than 1 kHz of spectral broadening is written onto the light by phase-noise variations of the fiber's transmission phase. The perturbations include acoustic noise, micro-bending induced by vibration, and micro-thermal variations. With a frequency-offset coding at the remote end on a weak returned beam, and by heterodyne at the source end, two units of the fiber's insertion phase are obtained. This is used with a phase-locked voltage-controlled crystal oscillator and digital divide-by-two circuitry to form a real time servo system using an additional acousto-optic modulator in the light beam, accurately "pre-cancelling" the phase noise before the beam enters the fiber. In this way it was possible to reduce the fiber's output bandwidth from kiloHz to the sub-milliHz level. Patent disclosures have been submitted on this work.
  • Nonlinear Optical Interactions. A recent program focuses on highly nonlinear interactions between light and matter, leading to a variety of dynamical effects in space and time such as self focusing and the formation of cones of light. A major emphasis is on the propagation of intense near-resonant laser light through atomic vapors, which provides clearcut tests of models for optical switching and propagation mechanisms that are important for optical computing and communications. Of particular interest is the generation of frequencies of light close to the Rabi-sidebands which are initiated by quantum vacuum fluctuations (spontaneous emission). Such "new" frequencies of light are generated, for example, in the phenomenon of "cone-emission." A second issue being studied is the spatial character and propagation of self-focused light filaments in nonlinear media. Experimental observations (Figure 4) are being performed on Sr vapor with an intense, single-mode pulsed laser beam under conditions where diffraction and self-focusing/self-defocusing are important. Under some conditions the pulses break up into many self-focused filaments of the type associated with self-induced transparency, and for other conditions single filaments form. These may exhibit stable, soliton type behavior, or severe spatial oscillations. The generation of new frequencies occurs in these filaments.

    Figure 4

    Figure 4. Measured diameter (dots) of self-focused filaments observed at the exit of the nonlinear medium (Sr vapor), compared to the predictions of steady-state propagation code (solid line). These are plotted versus the ratio of Rabi frequency (ΩF) in the center of the filament to the detuning from resonance (Δ).
    A related phenomenon is "selective reflection." This refers to the reflection of near-resonant radiation at the interface between a dielectric (window) and a dense atomic vapor. At relatively large detunings well outside the Doppler envelope, this is simply the reflection at the boundary between two dielectrics, where the vapor index of refraction is used inside the vapor. But for detunings inside the Doppler envelope, the result is very different due to a transient response of atoms leaving the window surface in the ground state, i.e., the normal index of refraction results from steady state excitation, but an atom leaving the wall suddenly experiences the radiation field. This causes a sharp reflection feature, with the homogeneous line width, on resonance. This feature provides a valuable tool for studying collisional line shapes of high density vapors as well as phenomena such as atom wall interactions and nonlinear effects such as optical pumping. This is also an essential issue in any study of how the atomic resonance behaves as densities are raised toward the region where electron conduction can occur.
  • Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) Development. NIST research also focuses on developing injection seeded OPO methods to generate Fourier transform limited, tunable IR pulses of high spectral brilliance. The method is based on a four mirror ring beta barium borate (BBO) resonator, pumped by a single mode tripled Nd:YAG, and injection seeded with a single mode ring dye laser, onto which the resonator is actively servo-loop locked. This novel source of high resolution, visible ("signal") and IR ("idler") light is sufficiently intense (5 mJ to 10 mJ, 0.005 cm-1 bandwidth) to nearly saturate vibrational overtones such as v=3-0 in the OH, NH, CH, and HF stretch manifolds. This light source is currently being applied to studies of vibrationally mediated photolysis in quantum state and size selected clusters. Specifically, the OPO is used to excite single rovibrational states in Ar-H2O clusters, which in turn are selectively photolyzed by 248 nm UV from the excimer. A comparison of OH distributions from H2O and Ar-H2O reveals surprisingly large "one atom cage" effects. For example, the OH rotational distribution from Ar-H2O photolysis has a mean rotational energy 3-fold greater than for H2O monomer. This would be consistent with heavy Ar atom "blocking" the light H atom recoil, and thus exerting greater torque on the OH radical fragment.
  • Active Vibration Isolation Systems. An important application to achieve future performance goals for tools used in semiconductor device manufacturing is the reduction of vibration due to floor motion, rapid air movement, and internal mass displacements. Other applications being pursued are in the automotive and aircraft industries. Most commercial applications are in the 0.2 Hz to 20 Hz frequency range covered in Quantum Physics Division research, although some space applications are at lower frequencies. A six-degree-of-freedom active isolation stage, previously built and tested, provides factors of 70 to 100 isolation from 2 Hz to 20 Hz for vertical and horizontal motions. This preliminary stage reduces the vibration in the building to a level consistent with a quiet site. The mechanical systems for the two main stages, to be mounted inside a vacuum chamber on the preliminary stage, have now been designed and constructed, and are shown in Figure 5. The performance goal for the first main stage is to reach a motion level of roughly 1 picometer/(Hz)0.5 at all frequencies above 1 Hz. Interferometric motion sensors with low readout noise will be used to achieve this noise level.
  • Figure 5

    Figure 5. Mechanical system for six-degree-of-freedom isolation state.

  • Simple Long Period Springs. Springs have been used to softly support and therefore isolate apparatus since the time of Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Yet springs have changed little since that time. In today's world, a need exists to lengthen a supported-by-spring system's period, and thereby its softness, without increasing the length of the isolating spring system. Using a mechanically highly pre-tensioned simple spring assembly, a 3 sec system period was achieved with a "spring length" of only 20 cm. (A simple extension spring would have to be stretched over 200 cm in order to achieve this same period.) By adding a horizontally stretched torque-cancelling spring, a 5sec period was achieved using one of the six "coils" of the pretensioned simple spring. New methods are being investigated to achieve even longer periods in various spring configurations which would be suitable for mechanically isolating various types of apparatus and commercial devices such as recording disks. This development will also permit improved vertical mechanical isolation within the constraints often imposed by room size or enclosing vacuum system size. These springs, although they continue to obey Hooke's law, are contrived to achieve long periods within the constraint of small extended size.
  • The Approach to Solvent Dynamics. The high sensitivity and resolution of near-IR slit jet absorption methods have allowed unique spectroscopic access to clusters containing multiple rare gas atoms, such as Arn-HF, Arn-DF and Arn-CO2, with n as large as 4. Technological interest in these prototypic systems arises from the need to understand sequential "solvation" of chromophores by "solute" atoms, and to test trial potential surface predictions of structures, solvation induced red shifts, and intermolecular "van der Waals" energy levels. Furthermore, by comparison with pairwise additive predictions, these studies provide a powerful probe of non-pairwise additive (so called "multibody") contributions to the full potential surface. Such multibody effects are thought to play an important role in the structure of solids and liquids, but are extremely difficult to extract from the much stronger, pairwise additive interactions unless the latter is already well determined. Fortunately, the Ar-HF/DF and Ar-Ar pair potentials are already known to high accuracy from previous high resolution spectroscopy, and thus comparison of full quantum mechanical pairwise predictions with experimental observation in Arn-HF/DF cluster systems offers a special opportunity for measuring the three body contributions quantitatively.

    The most demanding arena for such comparisons is for the low frequency van der Waals modes in trimer systems such as Ar2-HF and Ar2-DF, which have recently been observed both for the in-plane and out-of-plane "bends" of the HF or DF substituent. These studies reveal systematic deviations between full quantum close coupled calculations from the pairwise additive potentials and experimental observation. These results indicate the presence of surprisingly large repulsive three body terms in the angular potential which support large amplitude motion of the HF/DF subunit. From a theoretical analysis by collaborators, these three body terms are due to the repulsive interaction of the HF with the so called "exchange quadrupoles" that develop in Ar-Ar from electron cloud overlap. Interestingly, these three body exchange effects in Ar2-HF/DF have been shown to be nearly an order of magnitude larger than the Axilrod-Teller forces conventionally considered as the predominant multibody term.
  • Quantum-State-Resolved Studies in Supersonic Jets. A thrust in the recent year has been toward developing quantum state resolved tools for studying UV photophysics and photochemistry in supersonic jets. A UV pump/LIF probe apparatus has been constructed based on a slit jet and high efficiency (30%) cylindrical light collection system. The initial system for study has been 193 nm photolysis of H2O jet cooled into its lowest 000 (para) and 101 (ortho) rotational levels. The 193 nm photolysis is deliberately chosen to be far "red" of the lowest singlet excited state absorption band (at 165 nm), so as to sample Franck-Condon excitation from the extreme wings of the ground state vibrational wave function. As a result of large differential zero point effects in asymmetric HOD species, full quantum calculations have theoretically predicted >100 fold preference for HO versus OD cleavage. In dramatic contrast to these predictions, the studies of HOD photolysis indicate only a 6-fold preference at 193 nm for cleavage of the OH versus OD bond. These surprising results have stimulated several theoretical groups toward a reexamination of this prototypic (and presumed "understood") photolysis system, now including, for example, possible contributions due to the underlying triplet surface in the photolysis event.
  • Between a Star and a Planet. For many years astronomers have sought to determine the mass that distinguishes small self-luminous stars from massive planets such as Jupiter. The former radiate into space using the energy from hydrogen fusion reactions in their cores, whereas the latter never reach hydrogen ignition in their degenerate interiors but rather radiate the energy released by their slow gravitational contraction. Using the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), ultraviolet spectra have been obtained of the star VB10, thought to be one of the very lowest mass stars, with a mass of about 9% that of the Sun. This very faint star shows highly variable ultraviolet emission indicative of flaring, a property known to indicate the presence of strong magnetic fields. This new discovery is important because stars with this low mass are thought to be fully convective rather than having radiative cores, and thus would not have strong magnetic fields. The usual dynamo mechanism that is thought to amplify magnetic fields in the interior of the Sun and other stars cannot operate in the lowest mass stars and theoreticians must, therefore, develop new concepts to explain the magnetic fields in such low mass stars.
  • Measuring Electron Densities and the Rate of Mass Loss in Stars. The HST has been used to obtain ultraviolet spectra of the bright star Capella with extremely high spectral resolution and signal/noise. These data are being used to model the plasmas in the outer atmosphere of the star at temperatures of 104 - 2 × 105 K, but they will also be useful in determining the accuracy of some important atomic physics parameters. The spectra contain spin-forbidden (intersystem) lines of Si III, C III, O III, O IV, O V, and S IV formed at temperatures of 3 × 104 -2 × 105 K. Many of these lines have never before been observed in the spectrum of any star other than the Sun. These lines are important because their line ratios can be used to quantify the electron density of the plasma, and all of the line ratios should yield consistent densities. Intercomparison of these ratios will identify which ones may be predicting spurious densities, which will identify which collisional and radiative rates are likely in error.

    The rate at which stars lose material is an important factor in determining how stars age and how much chemically enriched material will be available in space from which new stars can emerge. While stellar mass loss through high speed winds is known to exist, there are few accurate measurements of the rate at which this occurs for most stars. This information is obtained by modelling high-resolution spectra of the Mg II resonance lines (near 280 nm) observed with the HST in the spectrum of the star αTrA. These spectra are of great interest because the gas in the stellar wind is seen as absorption in the blue wings of these lines and re-emission in the red wings. Detailed modelling of the absorption and re-emission of photons in the stellar wind has led to accurate estimates of the rate in which this star is losing matter and the speed of the wind.
  • Atomic Collisions Data Center. The Data Center received notification in August 1994 that Standard Reference Data (SRD) would cease funding the work at JILA halfway through FY-95. Good progress was made, despite the disruption, on the two Alignment and Orientation reviews. After a visit by authors N. Andersen and K. Bartschat the first week of January, 1995, Vol. III on Spin-dependent Effects was completed. In the remaining weeks of January, the voluminous graphs for Vol. II will be put in final shape and shipped to the authors for completion of the final sections of the manuscript. After four years of development, the Atomic Collisions Database has doubled in size and is accessible through a sophisticated graphical user interface, allowing bulk and interactive data loading and publication-quality tabular and graphical output. Although SRD has expressed no interest in the database with this interface, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Livermore National Labs have. An agreement has been reached to transfer the database to the Atomic Data for Fusion Data Center at Oak Ridge and to Livermore. The Data Center director spent a week in December installing the INGRES database management system at Oak Ridge and assisting the Fusion Data Center in building their bibliographic database. No word was received from SRD on the disposition of the pc-based Gas Laser Database developed at JILA's Data Center and delivered in the Summer of 1993, suggesting that legal obstacles to an agreement between CRC Publishing and SRD were not surmountable.

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