Conventional epitaxial techniques require single-crystal, lattice-matching substrates. This represents a significant constraint on the development of higher levels of integration in electronic and electrooptic systems. Graphoepitaxy, in which an artificial, submicron-period surface pattern provides a template for film orientation, offers a possibility of circumventing the constraint of conventional epitaxy. The research has the scientific objectives of: providing basic knowledge about interfacial interactions between films and substrates and the kinetics of grain growth in ultrathin films; providing knowledge of how artificial patterning on a submicrometer scale affects interfacial energetics and kinetics; and providing knowledge of how film orientation is affected by such patterning. The researchers are working with model materials, such as gold and other metallic systems, with an emphasis on basic studies and providing guidelines for the application of graphoepitaxy to technologically important material configurations. The long-range impact of this basic research will be to provide a technology for achieving low-defect-density, single-crystal films of technologically important materials on amorphous substrates.
