Presidential Young Investigator Award

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This grant is to provide research support for Dr. Charles B. Mullins under the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Awards Program. The ability to selectively modify material interfaces is important for: the surface hardening for mechanical or corrosive wear resistance, the production of thin films on semiconductors for advanced microelectonic devices, the deposition of polycrystalline and single crystalline diamond thin films for several advanced technologies, and the fabrication of advanced catalytic materials. The focus of this research is to study in detail, using both experimental techniques and mathematical modelling, the basic mechanisms, kinetics and dynamics of relevant chemical reactions at material interfaces. Concomitant with this effort, alternative (non-thermal) methods to promote chemical reactions, selectively, at interfaces will also be studied. The work will use an ultra-high vacuum scattering apparatus to investigate the influence of: (1) molecular kinetic and vibrational energy, (2) the bombardment of surface species with ions, radicals electrons and energetic neutral rare gas atoms, (3) intense electromagnetic radiation (laser and synchroton), (4) substrate heating and (5) surface and bulk additives (dopants, promoters and inhibitors) on chemical reactions relevant to thin film formation. The initial experimental work will include studies of the surface chemical processes inherent in the formation of silicon nitride films and in the doping of silicon.