I figured that it might be time to talk about my thesis subject.

Basically, it involves the use of extremely intensive X-ray generated by the so called synchrotron radiation to study Si or Ge nanowire growth mechanisms in situ inside a Ultra High Vacuum chamber (base pressure < 10^-10 mbar).

We’ll come to what is a synchrotron radiation, in situ, the characterization methods (GIXD, GISAXS) that are employed as well as the growth mode (CVD, VLS) later (hopefully).

Today, I’ll just leave you with some SEM images of the nanowires grown recently in the above mentioned chamber.

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TBH, it isn’t an extraodinary thing to be able to grow nanowires like that, as a lot of people were already capable of doing that years ago and all over the world, but it did take us a long time (almost a year) before the optimal growth condition proper to our equipment was actually found.

(So what is the point if the whole thing isn’t that extraodinary ?)

Well, not the whole thing. It is true that we are not the only group that masters the nanowire growth, but you aren’t going to find anywhere else one other such equipment (growth chamber) that is attached to a synchrotron beamline. And, as you might have heard already, synchrotron radiation offers some of the most powerful (and most expensive as well) characterization methods on earth.

Hmm…I guess that’s all for today…