silicon and boron-nitride

The aim of this test study is to check whether boron nitride (BN) might be applied as a detector material in high-energy photon-beam dosimetry. Boron nitride exists in various crystalline forms. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) possesses high mobility of the electrons and holes as well as a high volume resistivity, so that ionizing radiation in the clinical range of the dose rate can be expected to produce a measurable electrical current at low background current. Due to the low atomic numbers of its constituents, its density (2.0 g cm

Topics: Boron Compounds; Diamond; Electrons; Materials Testing; Photons; Radiometry; Radiotherapy, High-Energy; Reproducibility of Results; Silicon

We have fabricated highly sensitive and low noise solid-state nanopores with multiple layers of boron nitride (BN) membranes transferred onto a pyrex substrate. Both the dielectric and flicker noise of the device, which have been described as one of the bottlenecks to making highly sensitive 2-D membrane nanopore devices, have been reduced as follows. Firstly, a pyrex substrate with a low dielectric constant (εr = 4.7-5.1) and low dielectric loss (D < 0.001) is used instead of a Si substrate to reduce the dielectric noise of the device. Secondly, flicker noise is minimized by employing a 100 nm thick SiNx supporting layer with a small opening (less than 100 nm) for BN membrane transfer to enhance the mechanical stability. The flicker noise is further reduced by transferring multiple layers of BN instead of a single layer of BN. The resulting multi-layered BN device shows significant reduction of dielectric and 1/f noise as compared to the devices with a single layer of the BN and Si substrate. Furthermore, we demonstrate dsDNA translocations with a high signal to noise ratio around 50 at 100 and 10 kHz bandwidths.

Topics: Boron Compounds; DNA; Graphite; Ions; Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; Nanopores; Nanotechnology; Signal-To-Noise Ratio; Silicon; Thermodynamics

We discuss the simultaneous existence of phononic and photonic band gaps in a periodic array of holes drilled in a Si membrane. We investigate in detail both the centered square lattice and the boron nitride (BN) lattice with two atoms per unit cell which include the simple square, triangular and honeycomb lattices as particular cases. We show that complete phononic and photonic band gaps can be obtained from the honeycomb lattice as well as BN lattices close to honeycomb. Otherwise, all investigated structures present the possibility of a complete phononic gap together with a photonic band gap of a given symmetry, odd or even, depending on the geometrical parameters.

Topics: Acoustics; Boron Compounds; Crystallization; Models, Theoretical; Optics and Photonics; Photons; Silicon

Topics: Boron Compounds; Catalysis; Hot Temperature; Infrared Rays; Materials Testing; Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; Nanoparticles; Nanostructures; Nanotechnology; Silicon; Surface Properties; Temperature; Ultrasonics; X-Ray Diffraction