This award establishes a new ion beam facility which will be used to address issues in materials research at the University of Pennsylvania. A unique opportunity exists to apply ion scattering to a variety of exciting materials problems, some of which involve new kinds of experiments which advance the state-of-the-art ion scattering techniques. A major aspect of this research is the determination of chemical composition and its variation near interfaces and in thin films. This new ion beam facility extends across a wide range of research programs, which include studies of the distribution of dopants in near-surface regions of polymer based electrolytes and conducting polymers, the composition profile across interfaces in polymers (welding) and at polymer surfaces (adhesion, surface, modification), the progression of the transformation of thin films of polymer precursors to boron-based ceramics, epitaxial growth of thin layers (metal, silicide, and metal on ceramic), hydrogen on and near the surface of metals, and surface and interface studies of surface active impurities in metals and ceramics (interface embrittlement).
