U. of Vermont & State Agricultural College
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
X-ray scattering is an enormously powerful tool for the study of materials because of the ability to monitor length scales down to atomic dimensions and penetrating power to reach buried interfaces and structures. Synchrotron-based x-ray techniques also provide time resolution to study thin film crystal growth on time scales relevant to the fundamental surface processes and access to chemical information. This project aims to construct a unique thin-film growth system optimized for epitaxial growth of complex functional oxide materials. The system will be compatible with the existing infrastructure at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) beamline X21, where it will be used to perform in-situ x-ray scattering studies of surface roughening and smoothening, strain, phase separation, surface/interface structure, and other phenomena related to epitaxial film growth kinetics during film growth by Pulsed Laser Deposition or by Sputter Deposition. Research teams from a consortium of institutions, including Boston University, Stony Brook University, the University of Vermont, and Brookhaven National Laboratory will construct and support the facility. These groups bring to bear expertise in a wide variety of oxide materials, including materials that exhibit ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, or antiferromagnetic ordering, and materials with applications in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. The proposed instrumentation represents an exciting possibility for students to learn from a diverse group of scientists having tremendous expertise in characterization of materials by advanced methods. General users of the NSLS will also have access to the facility, which will ensure that focused high quality research will be performed with the system, while at the same time providing access and support to an international pool of scientists.
Layman Summary: This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
X-rays are an enormously powerful tool for the study of materials: they can be used to measure structures down to atomic dimensions using diffraction because of their short wavelength, and they can reach inside of materials because they are not strongly absorbed. Synchrotrons are the brightest sources of x-rays routinely available to scientists, which allows time resolved studies of thin film crystal growth on the time scales at or near the time scales of atomic processes taking place on the growth surface. This project aims to construct a unique thin-film growth system optimized for crystal growth of complex oxide thin films that have potential applications in electronics and energy devices. The system will be compatible with the existing infrastructure at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), where it will be used to perform x-ray scattering studies of surface roughening and smoothening, strain, phase separation, surface/interface structure, and other phenomena related to thin film crystal growth during film growth from plumes of atoms created by laser pulses or by energetic ion erosion of a target material. Research teams from a consortium of institutions, including Boston University, Stony Brook University, the University of Vermont, and Brookhaven National Laboratory will construct and support the facility. These groups bring to bear expertise in a wide variety of oxide materials, including materials for future electronic devices that exhibit ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, or antiferromagnetic ordering, and materials with applications in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. The proposed instrumentation represents an exciting possibility for students to learn from a diverse group of scientists having tremendous expertise in characterization of materials by advanced methods. General users of the NSLS will also have access to the facility, which will ensure that focused high quality research will be performed with the system, while at the same time providing access and support to an international pool of scientists.
A new system has been designed and constructed for studies of thin film growth, with the capability to simultaneously use x-rays to probe structure in real time at nanometer and atomic length scales. Inital studies are being performed at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The design focus of this project has been to construct a system capable of performing film deposition of complex oxide materials, such as ferroelectrics and materials for use in fuel cells. It is a key resource for graduate students and postdocs from several US universities who are performing advanced research in this area. Since it is optimized to make use of high intensity x-ray beams, it will be relocated to the National Synchrotron Light Source-II, where a new beamline for in-situ film growth studies will be available in 2016. The system is thus a powerful resource for the study of thin film growth processes by synchrotron x-ray methods, and is expected to serve this research community for a number of years. The system will have a significant impact on research of thin film deposition processes, some of which are difficult or impossible to monitor with conventional methods. During the commissioning of the new system, crystalline layers have been grown by pulsed laser deposition and a transition from layer-by-layer growth to three dimensional growth has been characterized. Multilayers, which are stacks of two different materials with layer thicknesses of only a few atomic spacings have also been grown, including epitaxial ferroelectric oxide multilayers of very high quality. Initial analysis suggests that the layers are as good or even better than those produced by a dedicated growth system. The capability to produce state-of-the-art thin films and multilayers combined with real-time x-ray scattering characterization promises to yield fundamental knowledge, and has the potential for advancing the state of the art in thin film growth methods. The work will potentially impact on areas such as electronic and photonic devices for information technology and on energy devices.
