Auger electron spectrometer for molecular beam epitaxy system

一种称为自旋电子学的沉浸式技术对计算机硬盘行业产生了巨大影响。  自旋电子学通过使用新型磁性材料为现有技术增加了新的多功能性。  由于自旋电子读取头的出现，硬盘驱动器的密度每年都翻倍。  这项新技术面临的挑战是不仅要将其整合到硬盘驱动器中，还要将其整合到集成电路中。  用自旋电子元件构建的随机存取存储器不需要电力来维持其信息，这对于便携式电子设备来说是一个非常有吸引力的特性。            这项研究的目标是培育和表征新的自旋电子材料。  将研究的一类材料是铁磁半导体，它将铁磁材料直接集成到半导体中。  我们正在探索在锗和硅中添加少量的锰来制造新的铁磁材料。  如果发现一种在室温下具有铁磁性且与硅技术兼容的铁磁半导体，其影响将是巨大的。            这项研究将探索通过分子束外延 (MBE) 生长的硅和锗的磁性。  这种技术一次将一个原子层的材料层叠在一起。  使半导体具有磁性的一大困难是它们对磁性元素的溶解度较低。  MBE 创造的条件包含的磁性元素含量比其他方法高得多。  该提案要求为俄歇电子能谱仪提供资金，以升级 MBE 室的功能。  该仪器将测量 MBE 室中生长的材料最外层原子层的化学成分。  这将使我们能够跟踪薄膜在生长过程中各个阶段的化学成分。

An immerging technology, called spintronics, has had an enormous impact on the computer hard drive industry.  Spintronics adds new versatility to existing technologies by using novel magnetic materials.  Hard drive densities have doubled every year as a result of spintronic read heads.  The challenge placed on this new technology is to incorporate it not only into the hard drives, but also into the integrated circuits.  Random access memory built with spintronic components would need no power to maintain its information, which is a very attractive property for portable electronic devices.            The goal of this research is to grow and characterize new spintronics materials.  One class of materials that will be investigated is ferromagnetic semiconductors, which integrate ferromagnetic materials directly into semiconductors.  We are exploring adding small amounts of manganese to germanium and silicon to make a new ferromagnetic material.  The impact will be enormous if a ferromagnetic semiconductor is discovered that is both ferromagnetic at room temperature and compatible with silicon technology.            This research will explore the magnetism in silicon and germanium grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE).  This technique layers materials together one atomic layer at a time.  One difficulty with making semiconductors magnetic is their low solubility for magnetic elements.  The conditions created by MBE incorporate magnetic elements at levels much higher than otherwise possible.  This proposal requests funds for an Auger Electron Spectrometer that would upgrade the capabilities of the MBE chamber.  This instrument would measure the chemical composition of the outer most atomic layers of the materials that are grown in the MBE chamber.  This would enable us to follow the chemical composition of our films at various stages during the growth.