CAREER: Understanding disorder, defects, and dielectric properties of entropy-stabilized oxides

非技术性描述：新材料的发现和开发是微电子技术革命的基础。最近，一个新的材料领域已经出现，利用大的化学和结构无序的优势。该项目将使用结构和化学无序的原子级工程来发现和理解这些新材料，以实现前所未有的功能。该项目旨在利用最先进的薄膜沉积与原位结构表征和原子到微米尺度的成像技术，以了解结构和化学无序的多组分氧化物的稳定性，其复杂的结构，以及无序诱导新的物理特性的方式。这项研究的结果有望为实现新的氧化物材料和无序-性质关系提供新的见解。该项目的学生正在接受材料合成和材料结构和介电性能测量的专业培训。毕业后，学生有资格在学术界和工业领域就业-特别是那些与微电子相关的领域。本研究与教育活动相结合，以吸引大学预科学生，并建立一个新的教学法，在高中水平的物理科学课。正在开发课程内容，利用陶瓷的介电特性和应用，将科学实践和原子到宏观尺度的思维引入高中课堂。这一努力将教师聚集在一起接受培训，将这些新的组成部分纳入他们的教学。正在利用半年一次的调查和面对面访谈来评估这些活动的影响和价值。技术难题：功能化缺陷和无序可以解锁陶瓷中前所未有的特性。为了促进这一功能，该项目旨在全面了解，表征，控制和预测跨长度尺度的障碍。在氧化物中，磁性和电子性质与它们的立体化学和电子结构密切相关。无序的引入，无论是在化学上还是结构上，都可能导致对称性破缺、掺杂、以及与涌现的巨大物理性质相关的键和电子构型受挫。通过大的构型无序稳定的多组分氧化物（所谓的熵稳定的氧化物）的发现产生了一种独特的物质状态，其中可以实现源自固有化学和结构无序的增强的功能性质。该项目旨在：1）利用实时表征来解析沉积期间的吸附原子弛豫和晶体结构的演变，以理解氧化物薄膜中的熵稳定机制，2）使用透射电子显微镜、X射线光电子能谱、X射线衍射和介电能谱从原子尺度到宏观尺度探测无序、缺陷以及电荷和组成不均匀性，以及3）理解引起熵稳定氧化物的异常应变弛豫、大的结构变化和巨大介电性质的微观结构机制。预计结果将阐明新的科学认识的热力学和动力学因素，驱动稳定，演变和无序的微观结构，缺陷的形成，以及它们对介电性能的后果。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The discovery and development of new materials underlies technological revolutions in microelectronics. Recently, a new materials field has emerged that harnesses large chemical and structural disorder to its advantage. This project will use atomic-scale engineering of structural and chemical disorder to discover and understand these new materials to achieve unprecedented functionalities. This project aims to leverage state-of-the-art film deposition with in-situ structural characterization and atomic-to-micron scale imaging techniques to understand the stabilization of structurally and chemically disordered multicomponent oxides, their complex structure, and the ways disorder induces novel physical properties. The results of this research are anticipated to provide new insights toward realizing new oxide materials and disorder-property relationships. Students in this project are receiving professional training in materials synthesis and the measurement of structural and dielectric properties of materials. Upon graduation, students are qualified for employment in academia and industrial fields - especially those related to microelectronics. This research is integrated with educational activities to engage pre-college students and establish a new pedagogy for physical science classes taught at the high school level. Curriculum components are being developed to introduce scientific practices and atomic-to-macroscopic scale thinking into the high-school classroom using the dielectric properties and applications of ceramics. The effort is bringing teachers together to receive training to integrate these new components into their teaching. The impact and merit of these activities is being assessed using biannual surveys and in-person interviews. TECHNICAL DETAILS: Functionalizing defects and disorder can unlock unprecedented properties in ceramics. To facilitate this functionality, this project seeks to comprehensively understand, characterize, control, and predict disorder across length scales. In oxides, the magnetic and electronic properties are strongly correlated to their stereochemistry and electronic structure. The introduction of disorder, chemically or structurally, can lead to symmetry breaking, doping, and frustrated bond and electronic configurations that have been associated with emergent and colossal physical properties. The discovery of multicomponent oxides stabilized by a large configurational disorder, so called entropy-stabilized oxides, creates a unique state of matter where enhanced functional properties stemming from the inherent chemical and structural disorder can be realized. This project aims to: 1) utilize real-time characterization to resolve adatom relaxation and evolution of crystal structure during deposition to understand mechanisms of entropy stabilization in oxide thin films, 2) probe disorder, defects, and charge and compositional non-uniformities from atomic- to macro-scale using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and dielectric spectroscopy, and 3) understand the microstructural mechanisms that give rise to the anomalous strain relaxation, large structural changes, and colossal dielectric properties of entropy-stabilized oxides. It is anticipated that results will elucidate new scientific understanding of the thermodynamic and kinetic factors that drive stabilization, evolution and disorder of the microstructure, defect formation, and their consequences on dielectric properties.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.