Carbon-Based Materials for Micoelectronics

There have been great advances in our understanding and use of inorganic carbon in recent years, following the development of the vapour synthesis of diamond, the discovery of C60 molecule and the discovery of carbon nanotubes.
This issue contains the papers from the Symposium K Carbon-based Materials for Microelectronics of the European Materials Research Society meeting which was held on 16-19 June 1998, Strasbourg, France. The symposium covered fullerenes, nanotubes, diamond and amorphous carbon. It was able to show the similarities between the sp2 and sp3 forms of carbon, and between the crystalline, nano-structured and amorphous forms. Carbon is unique in having such a range of covalently bonded forms.
The symposium consisted of 34 oral papers, of which 10 were invited, and 35 poster papers. The papers in this proceedings cover many of the recent developments in carbon, for example the effect of doping on the electronic structure of nanotubes, the discovery of phosphorus doping of diamond, the surface structure and electronic structure of diamond, and the field emission properties of diamond and diamond-like carbon.
The applications of carbon lag some way behind those of other materials, but the symposium highlighted the uses or potential of carbon in xerography, in field emission displays and in photoconductivity-based sensors and radiation detectors.

Preface (J. Robertson et al.). Gd—L111 EXAFS study of structural and dynamic properties of Gd@C82 between 10 and 300 K (H. Giefers et al.). Scanning probe method investigation of carbon nanotubes produced by high energy ion irradiation of graphite (L.P. Biró et al.). Field emission from diamond, diamond-like and nanostructured carbon films (O.M. Küttel et al.). Electron field emission from diamond and diamond-like carbon for field emission displays (J. Robertson). A study of the effects of nitrogen incorporation and annealing on the properties of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films (R.U.A. Khan et al.). Mechanisms of surface conductivity in thin film diamond: application to high performance devices (H.J. Looi et al.). A large range of boron doping with low compensation ratio for homoepitaxial diamond films (J.-P. Lagrange et al.). Chromium in amorphous hydrogenated carbon based thin films prepared in a PACVD process (P. Gantenbein et al.). Fabrication of aluminum—carbon nanotube composites and their electrical properties (C.L. Xu et al.). An investigation of the thermal profiles induced by energetic carbon molecules on a graphite surface (M. Kerford, R.P. Webb). Polycrystalline diamond formation by post-growth ion bombardment of sputter-deposited amorphous carbon films (P. Patsalas et al.).