Abstract: Diffusive properties of a monodisperse system of interacting particles confined to a quasi-one-dimensional channel are studied using molecular dynamics simulations. We calculate numerically the mean-squared displacement (MSD) and investigate the influence of the width of the channel (or the strength of the confinement potential) on diffusion in finite-size channels of different shapes (i.e., straight and circular). The transition from single-file diffusion to the two-dimensional diffusion regime is investigated. This transition [ regarding the calculation of the scaling exponent (alpha) of the MSD <Delta x(2)(t)> proportional to t(alpha)] as a function of the width of the channel is shown to change depending on the channel's confinement profile. In particular, the transition can be either smooth (i.e., for a parabolic confinement potential) or rather sharp (i.e., for a hard-wall potential), as distinct from infinite channels where this transition is abrupt. This result can be explained by qualitatively different distributions of the particle density for the different confinement potentials.

Abstract: Metamorphic buffers (M-buffers) consisting of graded InAlAs or bulk InP were employed for the production of InP-based epiwafers on GaAs substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy. The graded InAlAs is the standard for production metamorphic high electron mobility transistors (M-HEMTs), while the bulk InP offers superior thermal properties for higher current density circuits. The surface morphology and crystal structure of the two M-buffers showed different relaxation mechanisms. The graded InAlAs gave a cross-hatched pattern with nearly full relaxation and very effective dislocation filtering, while the bulk InP had a uniform isotropic surface with dislocations propagating further up towards the active layers. Both types of M-buffers had atomic force microscopy root-mean-square roughness values around 2030 Å. The Hall transport properties of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown on the InAlAs M-buffer, and a baseline HEMT grown lattice matched on InP, both had room-temperature mobilities >10 000 cm2/V s, while the M-HEMT on the InP M-buffer showed a decrease to 9000 cm2/V  s. Similarly, the dc parameters of a double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) grown on the InAlAs M-buffer were much closer to the baseline heterojunction bipolar transistor than a DHBT grown on the InP M-buffer. A high breakdown voltage of 11.3 V was achieved on an M-DHBT with the InAlAs M-buffer. We speculate that the degradation in device characteristics on the InP M-buffer was related to the incomplete dislocation filtering.