This award will enable the investigators to upgrade a Pulsed Laser Deposition system (PLD) which is already established in MIT. PLD is a powerful and flexible tool for deposition of materials such as oxides or alloys with complex stoichiometries. PLD is particularly useful for materials synthesis because of its ability for rapid prototyping of materials and the large amount of control which can be exercised over material composition and structure by varying the deposition conditions, temperature, ambient gas environment and amount of ion bombardment. A PLD system consists of a high power excimer laser which is used to ablate a target in vacuum, and the resulting flux is collected on a substrate to form a thin film. The PLD system at MIT was donated by IBM and is 10 years old. It has eight targets, and facilities for introduction of reactive gases, in-situ annealing and ion bombardment. However, significant improvements to the laser are needed in order to make it useful to a broad base of users over the next decade. The upgraded system will significantly enhance the thin film fabrication facilities and the educational and training opportunities available to a large, interdisciplinary base of users. ***
This award is for the upgrade of a Pulsed Laser Deposition system (PLD) which is used for making thin films of various materials. These thin films have applications in a range of microelectronic devices, for instance in optical devices, gas sensors, and memories. PLD is particularly useful for exploring a wide variety of materials, allowing rapid proptotyping of new materials and structures to be carried out. The equipment will be used by a group of faculty and students from MIT, Harvard and other institutions. They will benefit substantially from the enhanced PLD capabilities, in terms of performing basic research on film growth and evolution, in developing new materials and processes for device applications, and in training students in thin film science and technology. %%%
