This project will provide a tool capable of controlled synthesis of nanostructured elements of a wide combination of nanostructured materials. The system will combine high-pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) and Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) in the same ultra-high vacuum processing tool, along with a nanocluster source. Samples will be transferred between integrated process chambers under a controlled vacuum environment. The combination of CVD and PVD within the same tool is a powerful one, which will allow an unprecedented breadth of high-quality materials to be synthesized. Novel heterostructures of materials with nominally incompatible process requirements can be readily fabricated in a directed manner. The instrumentation enables the invention of new processing techniques to create novel nanostructured materials using the best-suited deposition tools for the formation of functional nanostructured materials with maximum flexibility and breadth of application. Projects that will benefit from the use of this versatile deposition tool include two that are funded by NSF and a third that is being initiated by two new faculty members.
This project involves the acquisition of equipment needed to develop better nanostructured materials. The equipment will be shared by a multidisciplinary group that includes physicists, chemists, electrical engineers and chemical engineers, working together to provide improved methods of making, measuring and controlling these tiny substances whose size is less than one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair. Although many aspects of nanotechnology have only been discovered and understood within the last decade, this group asserts that evidence of this recent research indicates there are two necessary stages for controlling the surfaces of these materials: using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to create nanostructures by assembling them from gases and then following with pulse laser deposition (PLD) to coat the structures with functional material useful for scientific studies. The challenge of these partnered processes up to this point has been that the gases used in the CVD process are not compatible with most vacuum processes. PLD is a high-vacuum technique, and is therefore incompatible with the gas process. The new equipment circumvents this difficulty through use of a system that provides an avenue for shuttling nano samples from one closed chamber to another without removing them. This dual-process machine is especially important for this class of research because some nanostructures would be ruined if exposed to the air. Nanotechnology has become vitally important in the fields of science and engineering for designing improvements in product design and manufacturing, enhancing clinical processes in medicine, and producing faster and more powerful computer components. This equipment acquisition is on the forefront of filling this need by solving some of the mysteries of the nano world by creating new materials within a dual, controlled environment.
