MRI: Acquisition of a III-V Molecular Beam Epitaxy System for a new Materials Growth User Facility

半导体材料的高质量薄膜的生长对从基础物理学到电子器件（包括晶体管、激光器、光电探测器和先进太阳能电池）的理解的研究至关重要。特拉华大学将获得一种分子束外延（MBE）系统，用于这些和其他应用的高质量材料的生长。该系统将作为用户设施的核心，允许来自全国各地的研究人员种植材料，以支持他们在物理、电气工程、材料科学与工程、化学和其他领域的研究项目，为此次收购提供区域和国家影响。该奖项来自主要研究仪器项目，支持获得用于III-V型半导体生长的分子束外延（MBE）系统。该系统将具有几个独特的特点：它将包含用于低温衬底清洁的原子氢源，铋和稀土渗出电池，高通量硅电池和带边测温系统，以便在低生长温度下进行可靠的温度测量。它还将在真空下连接到现有的拓扑绝缘体MBE系统。这种设置将使各种新材料和异质结构的发展成为可能，这些材料和异质结构目前对特拉华大学内外的用户来说是不可用的。该系统将形成一个新的用户设施的骨干，该设施将在一个更大的纳米级创新研究所的背景下专注于材料的生长，该研究所包含几个其他协同用户设施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The growth of high quality thin films of semiconductor materials is critical to research ranging from fundamental physics to the understanding of electronic devices including transistors, lasers, photodetectors, and advanced solar cells. With this award from the Major Research Instrumentation program, the University of Delaware will acquire a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system to permit the growth of high-quality materials for these and other applications. This system will serve as the centerpiece of a user facility to allow researchers from around the country to grow materials to support their research programs in physics, electrical engineering, materials science and engineering, chemistry, and other fields, providing a regional and national impact to this acquisition. This award from the Major Research Instrumentation program supports the acquisition of a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system for the growth of III-V semiconductors. This system will have several unique characteristics: it will contain an atomic hydrogen source for low-temperature substrate cleaning, bismuth and rare-earth effusion cells, a high-flux silicon cell, and a band-edge thermometry system to permit reliable temperature measurement at low growth temperatures. It will also be connected under vacuum to an existing topological insulator MBE system. This setup will enable the growth of a variety of new materials and heterostructures that are currently unavailable to users within and outside of the University of Delaware. This system will form the backbone of a new user facility focused on materials growth within the context of a larger Institute for Nanoscale Innovation, which contains several other synergistic user facilities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.