ANDREI Y. NIKULIN

Associate Professor Fundamental X-ray Physics BSc(Hons) Physics of Semiconductors, 1984 PhD Solid State Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences, 1990 Phone +61 (3) 9905 1353 FAX +61 (3) 9905 3637 Email:Andrei.Nikulin@sci.monash.edu.au

3-D x-ray diffraction imaging with nanoscale resolution

RESEARCH INTERESTS

1. X-ray optics and characterisation of crystalline structure:
   • X-ray phase retrieval theory and numerical methods;
   • Novel phase-amplitude tomographic techniques;
   • New theoretical, experimental and numerical techniques for X-ray diffraction data analysis;
   • Kinematical and dynamical theory of X-ray diffraction;
   • Interference methods of single-crystal surface and inner structure characterisation.
2. Characterisation of advanced materials and nano-electronics structures:
   • Model-independent non-destructive X-ray diagnostics of epitaxially grown SiGe/Si and GaAs-based multilayer superstructures with Angstrom spatial resolution;
   • X-ray laboratory studies of SiGe/Si and GaAs-based multilayer superstructures.
3. Synchrotron radiation studies and instrumentation:
   • High resolution X-ray diffractometry;
   • Fundamental studies (kinematical and dynamical theory) of 90 degree Bragg reflection;
   • Phase-amplitude mapping of crystalline alloys near absorption edges;
   • High-performance detector for synchrotron radiation experiments;
   • Novel techniques for advanced material characterisation.

Recent initiatives include:

• 3D diffraction imaging of nano particles in polymers and light alloys;
• quantitative complex profiling of nanowires and nanotubes from x-ray diffraction
• novel approaches to experimental diffraction image reconstruction;
• diffraction and imaging using a 90-degree Bragg reflection;
• deep insights into the fundamental interference and resonant phenomena occurring while highly parallel and monochromatic synchrotron radiation passes and reflects from a thin crystalline film at a 90-degree Bragg reflection;
• novel x-ray diffraction technique for high-performance silicon-germanium-carbon strain-compensated alloys for broadband telecommunication devices;
• x-ray and synchrotron radiation Fraunhofer diffraction studies of nano-structures and biological materials with nanometer spatial resolution.

RECENT SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Zatsepin N. A., Dilanian R. A., Nikulin A. Y., Gable B. M., Muddle B. C. and Sakata O., Early detection of nanoparticle growth from x-ray reciprocal space mapping, Appl. Phys. Letters, 2008, vol. 92, pp. 034101-03410.

Nikulin A. Y., Dilanian R. A., Zatsepin N. A., Gable B. M., Muddle B. C., Souvorov A. Y., Nishino Y. and Ishikawa T., 3-D x-ray diffraction imaging with nanoscale resolution using incoherent radiation, Nano Letters, 2007, vol. 7, pp. 1246-1250.

Darahanau A. V., Nikulin A. Y., Dilanian R. A. and Muddle B. C., X-ray diffraction profiling of metal-metal interfaces at nanoscale, Phys. Rev. B, 2007, vol. 75, pp. 075416-075427.

Darahanau A. V., Nikulin A. Y., Dilanian R. A., Muddle B. C., Souvorov A. Y., Nishino Y. and Ishikawa T., Nano-resolution profiling of metal-metal interfaces from x-ray Fraunhofer diffraction data, Appl. Phys. Letters 2006, vol. 88, p. 263113-263115.

Dilanian R. A., Nikulin A. Y., Darahanau A. V., Hester J. and Zaumseil P., Application of phase-retrieval x-ray diffractometry to carbon doped SiGe(C)/Si(C) superlattice structures. II. High resolution reconstruction using Neural Network Root Finder technique, J. Appl. Phys., 2006 vol. 99, p. 113526-113530.

Dilanian R. A. and Nikulin A. Y., X-ray diffraction imaging of Al2O3 nano-particles embedded in an amorphous matrix, Appl. Phys. Letters, 2005, vol. 87, p. 161904-161906.

Souvorov A. Y., Ishikawa T., Nikulin A. Y., Stetsko Y., Chang S. L. and Zaumseil P., X-ray dynamical theory of multiple beam diffraction from crystalline multilayers: application to a 90-degree Bragg reflection, Phys. Rev. B, 2004, vol. 70, p. 224109-224118.