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

技术摘要众所周知，多组分和多层氧化物薄膜具有非常广泛和丰富的电、光和磁性能。因此，这些材料在传感器、致动器、波导、电介质、能量存储设备、数据存储、超导体和半导体设备中具有非常广泛的重要技术应用。脉冲激光沉积是一种很好的薄膜氧化物生长技术。这项提议涉及购买脉冲激光沉积(PLD)室，该室将与现有的激光器(Compex 205)和现有的反射高能电子衍射(RHEED)系统一起组装，以大约新系统一半的成本构建一个完整的最先进的PLD系统。PLD小室具有在靶材之间自动控制激光光束的能力，以制造原子控制的多层膜，并产生连续的成分扩散，从而实现组合材料合成。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。这项提议的更广泛影响与不同研究人员群体的设备使用有关：本科生、研究生和博士后，以及来访的本科生和学校教师。复杂氧化物材料是一种由多种元素组成的氧化物，在许多应用领域具有重要的应用价值。复合氧化物可以具有非常有趣和有用的性质，如可调的导电性、磁化强度、光学和机械性能。例如，钛酸锆铅被用作压电致动器，其中电场使材料膨胀或收缩，而锂钴氧化物则用作锂电池的电极材料。在微电子应用中，人们希望将复杂的氧化物材料沉积成薄膜，以便将其整合到存储器、光学元件或气体传感器等器件中。脉冲激光沉积(PLD)是制作这些材料薄膜的一种很好的方法。在PLD中，使用高功率激光来烧蚀靶材。由所需的组合物制成，从靶上喷射的材料沉积在附近的衬底上。这项提议涉及购买一个真空室，在其中进行脉冲激光沉积，该真空室将与皮？S实验室已有的高功率准分子激光器相结合，制成最先进的沉积系统。该设备将促进气体传感器和光通信组件等设备的研究。这些设备将由不同的研究人员群体使用：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.