Fundamental research directed toward understanding both the chemical and micro-structural features of the oxidation of multicomponent materials systems(SiGe and SiC) using high pressure techniques is being carried out. The high pressure technique allows the synthesis of chemically metastable materials that have no natural analogs, and offers the ability to assess the effect of reaction rates under isothermal conditions on the development of interface morphology. %%% This research is expected to provide fundamental understanding of multicomponent materials systems important to the electronics field. The understanding gained will be helpful to semiconductor device design and fabrication. The results will be of importance in a general way to the technology of large scale, high speed integrated electronic circuits.
