IMR: Acquisition of Pulsed Laser Deposition System for Multicomponent and Multilayer Oxides and Student Training

多组分和多层氧化物薄膜具有广泛的电学、光学和磁学性质。因此，这些材料在传感器、致动器、波导、MEMS、能量存储器件、数据存储、超导体和半导体器件中具有非常广泛的技术重要应用。脉冲激光沉积是一种优良的氧化物薄膜生长技术。该提案涉及脉冲激光沉积（PLD）室的收购，这将与现有的激光器（Compex 205）和现有的反射高能电子衍射（RHEED）系统组装在一起，以构建一个完整的国家的最先进的PLD系统的成本约为新系统的一半。PLD腔室能够在目标之间自动引导激光束，以制造原子控制的多层膜，并创建连续的成分分布，以实现组合材料合成。PLD系统将用于三个主要项目：纳米结构离子材料，气体传感器和磁光材料，以及一些较小的项目。这一建议的更广泛的影响与不同研究人员群体使用设备有关：本科生，研究生和博士后，以及访问本科生和学校教师。复杂氧化物材料是一种以上元素的氧化物，在许多应用中具有很大的意义。复合氧化物可以具有非常有趣和有用的性质，例如可调的电导率、磁化强度、光学和机械性质。例如，钛酸锆铅用作压电致动器，其中电场使材料膨胀或收缩，而钴酸锂用作锂电池的电极材料。在微电子应用中，期望将复合氧化物材料存款为薄膜，使得它们可以结合到诸如存储器、光学部件或气体传感器的器件中。脉冲激光沉积（PLD）是制备这些材料薄膜的一种极好方法。在PLD中，高功率激光被用来烧蚀？目标？由所需的成分制成，并且从靶喷射的材料沉积在附近的衬底上。这个建议涉及的真空室中进行脉冲激光沉积，这将是一个国家的最先进的沉积系统相结合，它与高功率准分子激光器已经在PI收购？的实验室。该设备将促进对气体传感器和光学通信组件等设备的研究。这些设备将由不同的研究人员使用：本科生，研究生和博士后，以及访问本科生和学校教师。

Technical AbstractMulticomponent and multilayer oxide films are well known to exhibit an exceptionally wide and rich range of electrical, optical and magnetic properties. As a consequence, these materials have a very wide range of technologically important applications in sensors, actuators, waveguides, dielectrics, energy storage devices, data storage, superconductors, and semiconducting devices. Pulsed laser deposition is an excellent technique for the growth of thin film oxides. This proposal relates to the acquisition of a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) chamber, which will be assembled together with an existing laser (Compex 205) and an existing reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) system to construct a complete state-of-art PLD system for about half the cost of a new system. The PLD chamber has the ability to automatically steer the laser beam between targets to make atomically-controlled multilayers, and to create a continuous composition spread to enable combinatorial materials synthesis. The PLD system will be used in three major projects: nanostructured ionic materials, gas sensors, and magnetooptical materials, as well as a number of smaller projects. The broader impacts of this proposal are related to the use of the equipment by a diverse group of researchers: undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs, as well as visiting undergraduates and school teachers. Lay abstractComplex oxide materials, which are oxides of more than one element, are of great interest in many applications. Complex oxides can have very interesting and useful properties, such as tunable electrical conductivity, magnetization, optical and mechanical properties. For example, lead zirconium titanate is used as a piezoelectric actuator, in which an electric field causes the material to expand or contract, while lithium cobalt oxide is useful as the electrode material of a lithium battery. In microelectronic applications, it is desirable to deposit complex oxide materials as thin films, so that they can be incorporated into devices such as memories, optical components, or gas sensors. One excellent method for making films of these materials is pulsed laser deposition (PLD). In PLD, a high power laser is used to ablate a ?target? made of the desired composition, and the material that is ejected from the target deposits on a nearby substrate. This proposal concerns the acquisition of a vacuum chamber in which to carry out pulsed laser deposition, which will be made into a state-of-the-art deposition system by combining it with a high power excimer laser already in the PI?s laboratories. This equipment will facilitate research into devices such as gas sensors, and components for optical communications. The equipment will be used by a diverse group of researchers: undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs, as well as visiting undergraduates and school teachers.