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The New Materials group FA3 of the Applied Physics Department at the University of Vigo is member of the Research Center in Technologies, Energy and Industrial Processing (CINTECX) and of the Southern Galicia Institute of Health Research (IISGALICIASUR).
The groups R&D activities are based on UV-laser processing of semiconductors and biomaterials, and development of 2-D materials, chiroptical structures, 3-D printed scaffolds, characterization of surfaces, interfaces and thin films, and on the"in-vitro" behaviour of living cells for tissue engineering.
Its mission is the transfer of results and technologies to both, scientific community and market for applications in biomedicine, bioengineering, photonics, microelectronics, and nanotechnology.

 
Contact: Dr. Stefano Chiussi

Facebook: @NewMaterialsGroup, Web: http://cintecx.uvigo.es/cintex003 logo
Address: New Materials Group, E. E. Industrial -Campus Universitario, E-36310 Vigo (Spain)

 

cintex003Processing and characterization of thin films and heterostructures based on all group-IV elements is one of its main specific research areas.
Material processing activities are performed in a certified 40 m2 ISO-7 Cleanroom with ISO-6 laser processing areas and focused on 193 nm Laser CVD of Boron doped and intrinsic amorphous SiGeC alloys, PVD and PLD of thin Sn, Pb films and193 nm Laser assisted annealing (ELA) crystallization (ELC) and epitaxy (PLIE). 

 

 

PVD and 193 nm laser processing areas

 

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The aim of studying these 193 nm laser assisted techniques is to control, in thin films and heterostructures with group IV elements (C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) and alloys, processes such as impurity doping and dopant activation, formation of nanocrystalline heterostuctures on flexible polymer surfaces, and of epitaxial SiGe, SiGeSn and GePb alloys on virtual Ge substrates. Key target in epitaxy studies is to tailor the local (lateral and in depth) temperature profiles of the 25 ns short homogenized 193 nm laser pulses and evaluate its effects on fast melting and solidification processes. The infrastructure for characterization of group.-IV materials includes AFM-Raman (4 wavelength), XPS, TOF-SIMS, HFIB, HR-TEM/STEM, FTIR and SE.

 

 



Example v-Ge coated with Sn and irradiated with 193 nm pulses trough a homogenizer and a mask projection unit:


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193 nm Laser processing fundamentals

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3-D TOF-SIMS images of element distribution in a line pattern obtained with 10 laser pulses.

 

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(a) CM image of a line section, (b) TEM image of a line border, (c) AFM-Raman scan of a line border with pure Ge peak outside and SiGeSn peaks in the line. SiGeSn spectrum from the line center at the bottom of the image.

 

 

External funding in the last years (2017-2020):

*Sistemas Moleculares y Supramoleculares para Transducción Sensórica (SMol-Supra-Sens), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CTQ2014-58629-R, 2014-2017, 83 000 €

*Sistemas Quirópticos, Chiropticalsystems (Chiroptic-S), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, ”Redes de Excelencia CTQ2015-71924-REDT”, 2015-2017, 25 000 €

*Instituto de Bioingeniería en Red para el Envejecimiento Saludable (IBEROS), EU Fondo europeo de desarrollo Regional (POCTEP) (0245_IBEROS_1_E), 2017-2019, 1 463 958 €

*Inovaçao industrial atravésde colaboracaos especificas entre empresas e centros de investigaçao no contexto de valorizaçao biotecnológica marinha (CVMar+i), EU Fondo europeo de desarrollo Regional (POCTEP) (0302_CVMAR_1_1_P), 2017-2019, 2 230 496 €

*Consolidación y estructuración de unidades de investigación competitivas Modalidad grupos de referencia competitiva: “Grupo FA3 Novos Materiais”, Xunta de Galicia ED431C 2017/51, 2017-2020, 200 000 €

*Consolidación y estructuración de unidades de investigación competitivas Modalidad Redes: “Rede Galega de Biomateriais”, Xunta de Galicia GRR2014/033, 2017-2019, 120 000 €

*Biomaterial para regeneración ósea (BIOFAST) Programa IgniciaProba de Concepto (Gain-Xunta de Galicia), 2017-2019, 247 120 €

*CARIOSCOPE, EU POCTEC-Código Máis, 2018 -2018, 37 500 €

*BLUE biotechnology as a road for innovation on HUMAN’s health aiming smart growth in Atlantic Area (BLUEHUMAN), EU Programa Interreg ATLANTIC AREA, 2018-2020, 150 537 €

*BLUBIOLAB –“Laboratorio Transfronterizo de Biotecnología Marina”,  EU Programa de Cooperación InterregV (POCTEP 2014-2020) 2019 –2022, 272 651 €

 

Most relevant publications in the last years (2015-2020) (* Related to biomedicine, tissue engineering and chiroptics, ** related to Group IV)

** S. Wirths et al. Lasing in direct bandgap GeSn alloy grown on Si (001), Nature Photonics (2015) 9(2) 88-92 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.321

**F. Oliveira et al. Multi-stacks of epitaxial GeSn self-assembled dots in Si: Structural analysis, Journal of Applied Physics (2015) 117 (12), https://doi.org/10.1063/1.491593

** I.A. Fischer et al. Growth and characterization of SiGeSn quantum well photodiodes, OpticsExpress (2015) 23 (19) 25048, https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.025048

**F. Oliveira et al. Fabrication of GeSn-multiple quantum wells by overgrowth of Sn on Ge by using molecular beam epitaxy, Applied Physics Letters (2015) 107 (26), https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4938746

** F. Gontad et al. 193 nm Excimer laser processing of Si/Ge/Si(100) micropatterns, Applied Surface Science (2016) 362, 217-220, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2015.11.240

**T. Wendav et al. Photoluminescence from ultrathin Ge-rich multiple quantum wells observed up to room temperature: Experiments and modeling, Physical review B –Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (2016) 94(24), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.245304

**I. A. Fischer et al. (Si)GeSn nanostructures for optoelectronic device applications, IEEE Proceedings MIPRO (2016) 1-4, DOI: 10.1109/MIPRO.2016.7522099,  Electronic ISBN:978-953-233-086-1

*R. Valdés et al. Ex vivo analysis of the oral epithelium by high-wavenumber Raman spectroscopy, International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (2017) 24(2) 154-168, https://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJBET.2017.084665

** J. Schlipf et al. Growth of patterned GeSn and GePb alloys by pulsed laser induced epitaxy, IEEE Proceedings MIPRO (2017) 37-42 https://doi.org/10.23919/MIPRO.2017.7973387

*H. Aguiar et al. Structural characterization of bio ceramics and mineralized tissues based on Raman and XRD techniques Ceramics International (2018) 44(1) 495-504, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.09.203

* A.Ozcelik et al. Device-Compatible Chiroptical Surfaces through Self-Assembly of Enantiopure Allenes, Langmuir 2018) 34(15) 4548-4553   https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.langmuir.8b00305


*M. López-Álvarez et al, Osteogenic effects of simvastatin-loaded mesoporous titania thin films, Biomed Mater.13 (2018) 025017 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-605X/aa95f1

*M. López-Álvarez et al. Quantitative evaluation of sulfation position prevalence in chondroitin sulphate by Raman spectroscopy, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy 50 (2019) 656-664 https://doi.org/10.1002/jrs.5563

** M.C.J.Weiser et al. Fabrication of GePb-Alloys by Means of Pulsed Laser Induced Epitaxy, IEEE  Proceedings MIPRO (2019) 1-6,, DOI: 10.23919/MIPRO.2019.8756640, ISSN: 2623-8764

** J.Schlipf et al. Ellipsometric analysis of concentration gradients induced in semiconductor crystals by pulsed laser induced epitaxy, J. of Vacuum Science and Technology B: Nanotechnology and Microelectronics B 37, 061213 (2020) (2019) 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1116/1.5122777¨