This award is made by the Divisions of Chemistry, Materials Research and Electrical and Communications Systems under the Materials Synthesis and Processing Initiative. The research will develop novel site-specific nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods for the analysis of epitaxial structures and defects in III-V semiconductors and will correlate the information obtained with growth procedures and existing analysis techniques. By modifications of demonstrated methods of optical NMR, the sensitivity of NMR will be extended to allow the observation of small numbers of nuclear spins in very small volumes. This represents an improvement of about ten orders of magnitude over ordinary NMR in the number of spins detectable, making possible surface and interface studies of important electronic and photonic materials. The spectral resolution for optically excited states will be improved about ten-thousand fold. Applications will be made to interface chemistry, strain fields, electronic structure, and the spatial distribution of defects both in bulk crystals and quantum-confinement structures. %%% The development of time-sequenced optical NMR will allow the detection of surface defects and sites in solid state materials with extremely high sensitivity and resolution.
