Self-organized structuring of W/C multilayers on Si substrate

After aging at room temperature for several months W/C multilayers (20 periods, single layer thicknesses in the nanometer range) grown on Si-(111) substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) developed homogeneously wrinkled surfaces. Their structures were studied by optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffractometry. Typical dimensions of debonded areas are some 100 μm in length, about 40 μm in width and 2–3 μm in height. The formation of wrinkles is accompanied by an increase in the free surface by 1–2%. Stress relaxation is considered the driving force of this phenomenon. Received: 26 July 1999 / Accepted: 29 July 1999 / Published online: 16 September 1999     

Phase transitions in simple models of rod-like and disc-like micelles

The interplay of interactions between micelles, and the aggregation of these micelles into large, highly anisotropic micelles, is studied. Simple, hard-body, models of rod-like and disc-like micelles are used, which allows us to apply fundamental measure theory to determine the free energy. Then we study the phase transition from the fluid phase to a liquid crystalline phase. We find that aggregation induces a strongly first order transition from a fluid phase of small micelles to a close packed liquid crystalline phase of infinitely large micelles. Received: 3 December 1997