Development of New Electronic Materials Using High-Throughput Epitaxial Film Growth

非技术性描述：当材料采用不同的结构时，它们表现出明显不同的性能。许多新材料被预测具有令人兴奋的电子特性，但从未被制造出来。在特定结构中制造材料的努力通常使用试错法、低通量工艺，这抑制了材料在技术中的发现、开发和最终部署。在该项目中，正在探索一种新型的高通量结构导向制造方法，以列出有望影响能源和信息技术的突破性材料的短名单。具体而言，材料的薄层同时沉积在数百至数千个新表面上，并且有效地确定薄层与所有表面之间的结构关系。结构导向表面是定制的，以有利于特定的目标材料。使用这种方法，研究团队正在建立材料稳定性的科学基础，发现新材料，并加快电子材料的开发周期。研究人员正在将研究成果纳入本科和研究生课程，并开发技术增强的学习工具，以提供主要内容和基本技能的实践。具体来说，正在开发一个网络/应用程序界面，以取代传统的被动的教科书经验与互动的学习环境移动的学生的步伐。技术描述：一个高通量的外延薄膜生长方法正在被用来生产全新的电子材料-以前未实现的，亚稳态复合氧化物。这种方法被称为组合衬底外延，研究人员正在使用这种方法来研究数百到数千种不同表面上的局部外延生长。该研究小组准备了自己的新型基底作为烧结陶瓷的抛光表面，并专门定制它们，以支持预测具有令人兴奋的电子特性的新材料的制造。电子背散射衍射被用作高通量的局部结构探针，脉冲激光沉积被用作材料柔性薄膜生长方法。通过快速探索外延合成空间的大区域，确定膜-衬底结构对之间的优选外延取向，并建立绘制相位作为处理条件的函数的全面外延稳定性图。因此，研究小组确定了允许在特定晶体结构中外延合成给定组合物的衬底和生长条件。该项目正在建立外延稳定化的经验科学基础，从而能够加速材料的发现及其在技术中的应用。研究人员的目标是发现几种特定的突破性化合物，这些化合物有望成为激发电极，铁电体和多铁性材料。

Non-technical Description: Materials show remarkably different properties when they adopt different structures. Many new materials are predicted to have exciting electronic properties, but have never been made. Efforts to fabricate materials in specific structures generally use trial-and-error, low-throughput processes that inhibit the discovery, development, and ultimate deployment of materials in technology. In this project, a novel high-throughput structure-directing fabrication method is being explored to make a short list of breakthrough materials expected to impact energy and information technologies. Specifically, thin layers of a material are deposited simultaneously on hundreds to thousands of novel surfaces, and the structural relationships between the thin layers and all surfaces are efficiently determined. The structure-directing surfaces are tailored to favor specific target materials. Using this method, the research team is establishing the scientific underpinnings of materials stability, discovering new materials, and accelerating the development cycle of electronic materials. The investigators are incorporating research outcomes in undergraduate and graduate courses and developing technology enhanced learning tools for delivery of primary content and practice of essential skills. Specifically, a web/app interface is being developed to replace the traditional passive textbook experience with an interactive learning environment moving at the student's pace.Technical Description: A high-throughput epitaxial film growth methodology is being used to produce entirely new electronic materials - previously unrealized, metastable complex oxides. The method is called combinatorial substrate epitaxy, and investigators are using this to study local epitaxial growth on hundreds to thousands of different kinds of surfaces. The research team prepares their own novel substrates as polished surfaces of sintered ceramics and specifically tailor them to support the fabrication of new materials predicted to exhibit exciting electronic properties. Electron backscatter diffraction is used as a high-throughput local structural probe and pulsed laser deposition as a material flexible film growth method. By exploring rapidly large regions of epitaxial synthesis space, the preferred epitaxial orientations between film-substrate structural pairs are determined and comprehensive epitaxial stability maps that plot phase as a function of processing conditions are established. The research team thus identifies the substrates and growth conditions that allow one to synthesize epitaxially a given composition in a specific crystal structure. The project is establishing the empirical scientific underpinnings of epitaxial stabilization, which enables the accelerated discovery of materials and their deployment in technologies. The investigators target the discovery of several specific breakthrough compounds expected to be exciting electrodes, ferroelectrics, and multiferroics.