9353273 Krebs The proposed research will investigate the processing of lanthanum aluminate films on a silicon substrate by generating an aerosol of lanthanum and aluminate nitrate. The proposed research will investigate an alternative ceramic process for the preparation of epitaxial ceramic films, which are now usually prepared by using elaborate and expensive techniques such as chemical vapor deposition and plasma, sputtered vapor deposition. The aerosol technique involves the formation of micron or submicron precursors from aqueous solutions of lanthanum and aluminum nitrate. The aerosol is injected into a tube furnace, which is heated to temperatures greater than 900oC, to remove the solvent and form submicron to micron spherical oxide particles. The particles are deposited on crystalline silicon wafers and then the coated silicon substrates are annealed to form a polycrystalline film. The proposed research will investigate the optimization of the aerosol to form a ceramic coating and develop an epitaxial thin film. The principal investigator will study fundamentally the effects of the lanthanum/aluminum solution and the annealing step to prepare ceramic thin films on silicon substrates. ***
