MRI: Development of a High-Pressure Laser Floating Zone Furnace

信息技术、能源和许多其他领域的进步依赖于具有理想的机械、电、磁和热性能的材料的开发和表征。首先合成高质量、块状新材料单晶的研究人员处于对其基本性质进行明确研究的最佳位置。此外，这些研究人员也很好地促进了这些材料在先进技术应用中的进一步发展。该项目开发了一种高压激光浮动区域炉，目前还没有商业化，能够生长出任何其他方式都无法生长的新型材料的单晶。高压激光浮区炉将成为莱斯大学共享设备管理局的一部分，因此拥有来自莱斯大学和德克萨斯州休斯顿及其周边地区的扩展研究社区的广泛用户群。除了培养本科生和研究生使用熔炉生长单晶的艺术外，这个项目的成功实施将为教师和学生开辟目前不可能的研究领域。这些活动将拓宽固态科学的研究途径，并将为发现量子材料单晶中的新现象提供新的机会。传统的激光浮区炉是一种强大的工具，用于生长高质量的氧化物、金属间化合物、碳化物和硅化物单晶，只要熔化温度低于~ 2800℃，但生长室被限制在300 bar的气体压力下。然而，生长更复杂材料的单晶需要特殊的能力，特别是在生长室中使用高压。这是因为液体的沸点是其蒸汽压等于其周围气体压力的温度。将腔内的气体压力增加到1000 bar将大大增加稳定熔体的机会，从而允许单晶的生长，这是传统激光浮区炉所不可能实现的。最近，加州大学圣巴巴拉分校（UCSB）的研究人员开发了一种新的高压激光浮区炉设计，其工作压力高达1000巴的气体压力。该项目的目标是通过在莱斯大学设计和建造下一代高压激光浮动区炉来继续这一创新；这将是德克萨斯州和美国南部的第一个此类项目，并将代表高压浮区技术在先进晶体生长方面的持续进步。随着高压激光浮区炉在1000巴气体压力下的改进，研究人员将能够获得全新的相位参数体系，并生长单晶，这是商业仪器无法实现的。拟议中的熔炉将由莱斯大学的共享设备管理局（Shared Equipment Authority）运营和维护，不仅莱斯大学的研究人员可以方便地访问，德克萨斯和美国南部的研究人员也可以方便地访问，从而大大扩大了推进材料合成研究的能力。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。

Advances in information technology, energy, and many other fields rely upon the development and characterization of materials with desirable mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and thermal properties. Investigators who first synthesize high-quality, bulk single crystals of novel materials are in an optimal position to conduct definitive studies of their fundamental properties. Moreover, these investigators are also well positioned to facilitate further development of these materials toward applications in advanced technologies. This project develops a high-pressure laser floating zone furnace, not commercially available, capable of growing single crystals of novel materials that cannot be grown any other way. The high-pressure laser floating zone furnace will be a part of Rice’s Shared Equipment Authority and therefore have a broad user base from Rice University and the extended research community in and around Houston, Texas. In addition to training undergraduate and graduate students in the art of growing single crystals using the furnace, the successful execution of this project will open areas of research currently not possible for faculty and students. These activities will broaden the avenues of research in solid-state science and will provide new opportunities for discoveries of novel phenomena in single crystals of quantum materials.Conventional laser floating zone furnaces are powerful tools used to grow high-quality single crystals of oxides, intermetallics, carbides, and silicides, as long as the melting temperature is below ~2,800°C, but the growth chamber is limited up to 300 bar gas pressure. Growing single crystals of more complex materials, however, requires special capabilities, particularly the use of high pressure in the growth chamber. This is because the boiling point of a liquid is the temperature at which its vapor pressure is equal to the pressure of the gas around it. Increasing the gas pressure to 1000 bar inside the chamber will dramatically enhance the opportunities to stabilize the melt, and therefore allowing growth of single crystals not possible with conventional laser floating zone furnace. Recently, the investigator at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), developed a novel design for a high-pressure laser floating zone furnace for operational pressures up to 1000 bars of gas pressure. The objective of this project is to continue this innovation through the design and construction of a next-generation high-pressure laser floating zone furnace at Rice University; it will be the first of its kind in Texas and the southern U.S. and will represent a continued advance in high-pressure floating zone technology for advanced crystal growth. With the development of an improved high-pressure laser floating zone furnace under 1000 bars of gas pressure, the investigators will be able to obtain entire new phase parameter regimes and grow single crystals not possible with a commercial instrument. The proposed furnace will be operated and maintained by Rice University’s Shared Equipment Authority, where it will be easily accessible not only to Rice researchers but also to researchers throughout Texas and the southern U.S., thereby significantly broadening the capacity to advance research in materials synthesis.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.