Ternary semiconductor compounds containing In, Ga, Al and Sb exhibit structural parameters that vary as a function of stoichiometry. When antimonide films are irradiated by swift heavy ions, dramatic morphological changes take place, giving rise to semiconductor foams with giant surface area. This presentation is about the development and characterization of semiconductor nanofoams formed by ion irradiation of thin films deposited by magnetron sputtering. 

Raquel Giulian graduated in Physics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (UFRGS) in 2003, and received a Master degree in Physics from the same university in 2005. During the academic year of 2005 she was a research assistant at the Department of Electronic Materials Engineering at the Australian National University (ANU). In 2009 she received a Ph.D. degree at the same university working under the supervision of Professor Mark C. Ridgway. She worked with modification of semiconductors in the two subsequent years of her post-doctoral fellowship, also at the ANU. She is currently an Assistant Professor at UFRGS, working with ion beam synthesis of porous semiconductors. She has published 52 research papers, 1 book and in 2013 she was awarded the L’Oreal prize For Women in Science in Brazil. She is also an affiliated member of the Brazilian Academy of Science. She is currently working with ion implantation, particle induced x-ray emission (PIXE), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray absorption spectroscopy (EXAFS and XANES) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).