It was with some trepidation that Sandeep, Kester and the intrepid Einstein team made their third and final visit to the research department of the Australian National University. However this time they would be visiting the Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, hooray or something. Sounding suitably unrelated to lasers, the feeling among the group was slightly hopeful.

Most chips these days are actually made of silicon (except McDonald chips, which are grown and processed in beautiful, magnificent North-West Tasmania. And area which contrary to the opinions of the grossly ignorant and uninformed is actually longer then a few kilometers, and is not known to be a place for incest, except in the disgusting fantasies of mainland Australia.) and in order to use silicon a number of changes need to be made.

Silicon is a semiconductor and requires that 'impurities'be added to it in order to make it conduct electricity. These impurities are taken from groups 3 and 5 of the periodic table. When these impurities sit in the Si lattice on the substitutional sites they 'donate' either
free electrons (so called n-type dopants from group 5). Boron (B) which has only 3 electrons in its outer shell, is a typical p-type dopant and Sb (5 electrons in outer shell) is an n-type dopant. Electrical current passes through the semiconductor by the motion of holes and/of electrons through the lattice.

Having dispensed with the science, it was on to the fun stuff! The team was split (speaking of which check out great a great Tassie band at http://listen.to/spilt, the bass player is an NYSFer) into three groups.

Group 1 carried out an ion implantation of antimony (Sb) into a single crystal wafer of silicon. This technique injects Sb ions into the top few hundred atom layers of Si. During this process the surface layers are disordered and an amorphous layer is created.

Group 2 analyzed the sample by Rutherford backscattering (RBS) to measure the distribution of the Sb atoms below the surface of the Si and also studied the damage that implantation caused to the Si and how it could be removed.

And the wonderful Group 3 were meant to analyze the Sb implanted sample by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) to find the distribution of Sb in Si. Unfortunately the equipment was not working and so they were not able to complete this exercise (the monitor wasn’t plugged in or something). They were still able to have a bash on the machines and it was during this time that they learned a very important piece of information. While Susan Weir was yet to do her awesome speech on 'really awful physics' in movies the group 3 team learned that not everything you see in movies is completely made up. For example big red buttons should not be pressed unless specifically told to.

In Susan’s speech she did mention The Matrix, and if you watch the DVD you will discover that 'The really awful physics'in The Matrix was actually done on purpose to give the impression that this is not the real world! (But apart form that it was definitely the best speech).

Having finished this operation the group was very lucky and got to go on a visit to an area not really relating to the task at hand, but still very exciting. The kind people took the groups to see a laser. Not for any great reason, just because they knew we would find it really exciting. The woman was really nice and didn’t say anything when a certain student (who will remain nameless) used a profanity when being introduced as he looked down and discovered he had lost his key (f**k).

The groups then got back together for a chorus of Silent Night, a brief rundown of what had been achieved in their individual group, before it was time to hop back on the bus and head back to the rooms for another crazy night of partying and fun.

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