Film Growth Morphology and Segregation in Pulsed Laser Deposition

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This grant emphasizes a fundamental study of thin film growth morphology and composition selection for Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). A major goal is to make a direct comparison between growth by PLD and by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) performed under identical conditions to facilitate the extension and modification of the extensive body of MBE knowledge to the PLD process. Initial experiments will be conducted using simple fcc and bcc metal systems, in particular Cu, Ni and Fe on Ag and Co, Fe, Rh, Pd and Pt on Cu. Characterization involves examination of non-wetting island nucleation, growth, coarsening and coalescence in the formation of thin metal films on insulating substrates, along with surface roughness evolution in homoepitaxial growth. Along with the experimental study of segregation of alloying elements at the surface and their burial and incorporation into the growing film, modeling efforts include simulations using 3-D Kinetic Monte Carlo code.This research program is designed so that its results will have broad applicability to a variety of nonequilibrium processing techniques for a wide variety of materials. The experimental effort will permit the formulation of broad principles that can be related to the research enterprise concerned with film growth. This research will facilitate the fabrication of new, interesting, and potentially useful and combinations of materials. The project supports the training of two graduate students contributing to their professional development.