Pattern growth of Ge films on PtBA polymer substrates

A pattern growth of Ge wires is observed on Poly(tert-butyl acrylate) (PtBA) polymer. PtBA polymer of 30 and 100 nm thick has been deposited on silicon substrate using spin coating. Thin films of Ge of various thickness ranging from 0.5 to 7.4 nm were grown using magnetron sputtering and molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) has been used to determine effective thickness of Ge films. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to characterize the wire patterns. The wire-like structures were found to be of Ge as detected by energy dispersive X-rays during SEM measurements. TEM measurements show that these Ge wires are single crystalline in nature.