FractureFracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displacement develops perpendicular to the surface, it is called a normal tensile crack or simply a crack; if a displacement develops tangentially, it is called a shear crack, slip band or dislocation. Brittle fractures occur without any apparent deformation before fracture.
Scanning tunneling microscopeA scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. STM senses the surface by using an extremely sharp conducting tip that can distinguish features smaller than 0.1 nm with a 0.01 nm (10 pm) depth resolution. This means that individual atoms can routinely be imaged and manipulated.
Cleavage (crystal)Cleavage, in mineralogy and materials science, is the tendency of crystalline materials to split along definite crystallographic structural planes. These planes of relative weakness are a result of the regular locations of atoms and ions in the crystal, which create smooth repeating surfaces that are visible both in the microscope and to the naked eye. If bonds in certain directions are weaker than others, the crystal will tend to split along the weakly bonded planes. These flat breaks are termed "cleavage".
Wafer (electronics)In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate) is a thin slice of semiconductor, such as a crystalline silicon (c-Si), used for the fabrication of integrated circuits and, in photovoltaics, to manufacture solar cells. The wafer serves as the substrate for microelectronic devices built in and upon the wafer. It undergoes many microfabrication processes, such as doping, ion implantation, etching, thin-film deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning.
Low-voltage electron microscopeLow-voltage electron microscope (LVEM) is an electron microscope which operates at accelerating voltages of a few kiloelectronvolts or less. Traditional electron microscopes use accelerating voltages in the range of 10-1000 keV. Low voltage imaging in transmitted electrons is possible in many new scanning electron detector. Low cost alternative is dedicated table top low voltage transmission electron microscope.
Integrated passive devicesIntegrated passive devices (IPDs), also known as integrated passive components (IPCs) or embedded passive components (EPC), are electronic components where resistors (R), capacitors (C), inductors (L)/coils/chokes, microstriplines, impedance matching elements, baluns or any combinations of them are integrated in the same package or on the same substrate. Sometimes integrated passives can also be called as embedded passives, and still the difference between integrated and embedded passives is technically unclear.
Scanning probe microscopyScanning probe microscopy (SPM) is a branch of microscopy that forms images of surfaces using a physical probe that scans the specimen. SPM was founded in 1981, with the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. The first successful scanning tunneling microscope experiment was done by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer. The key to their success was using a feedback loop to regulate gap distance between the sample and the probe.
Synthetic diamondLab-grown diamond (LGD; also called laboratory-grown, laboratory-created, man-made, artisan-created, artificial, synthetic, or cultured diamond) is diamond that is produced in a controlled technological process (in contrast to naturally formed diamond, which is created through geological processes and obtained by mining). Unlike diamond simulants (imitations of diamond made of superficially similar non-diamond materials), synthetic diamonds are composed of the same material as naturally formed diamonds – pure carbon crystallized in an isotropic 3D form – and share identical chemical and physical properties.
Field-effect transistorThe field-effect transistor (FET) is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the flow of current in a semiconductor. FETs (JFETs or MOSFETs) are devices with three terminals: source, gate, and drain. FETs control the flow of current by the application of a voltage to the gate, which in turn alters the conductivity between the drain and source. FETs are also known as unipolar transistors since they involve single-carrier-type operation.
Plasticity (physics)In physics and materials science, plasticity (also known as plastic deformation) is the ability of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation, a non-reversible change of shape in response to applied forces. For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the material itself. In engineering, the transition from elastic behavior to plastic behavior is known as yielding. Plastic deformation is observed in most materials, particularly metals, soils, rocks, concrete, and foams.
