Presidential Young Investigators Award

该奖项是根据国家科学基金会的总统青年研究员奖(PYIA)计划向Westmoland博士提供研究支持。PYIA计划的目标是为国家最杰出和最有前途的年轻科学和工程教师提供支持。这些奖项旨在提高美国学术机构应对学术和工业研究和教学对高素质科学和工程人才的需求的能力。韦斯特摩兰博士的研究领域是化学反应，范围从微电子设备的等离子体制造到燃烧和热解。他计划将分子束质谱(MBMS)与光学光谱、气相色谱和GC/MS相结合，以绘制实验室反应堆内的浓度图。这种组合允许对活性物种(自由基、单态物种，如二氢化硅和离子)和稳定物种进行定量测量。在MBMS装置上研究了等离子体增强化学气相沉积(PECVD)从硅烷中制备非晶硅薄膜的过程。近期的目标是描述非晶硅的现有商业PECVD：氢、二氧化硅和硅-氮薄膜具有足够的精确度用于工艺和产品质量控制，但在分子尺度上的理解稍后也将针对新的薄膜和应用。他在燃烧和热解方面的目标是建立和应用氧化和生长的详细化学机制，特别是芳烃的形成。他将研究三种碳氢化合物(丙烷、丙烯、丙炔和丙烯)，以确定三种碳基是否形成苯，苯是否通过四种碳基途径形成，以及是否也可能涉及分子反应或插入反应。

This award is to provide research support to Dr. Westmoreland under the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Awards (PYIA) Program. The objectives of the PYIA Program are to provide support to the Nation's most outstanding and promising young science and engineering faculty. The awards are intended to improve the capability of U.S. academic institutions to respond to the demand for highly qualified science and engineering personnel for academic and industrial research and teaching. Dr. Westmoreland's field of research is the study of chemical reactions ranging from the plasma fabrication of microelectronic devices to combustion and pyrolysis. He plans to combine molecular-beam mass spectrometry (MBMS) with optical spectroscopy, gas chromatography, and GC/MS to map concentrations within laboratory reactors. This combination permits quantitative measurements both of reactive species (free radicals, singlet species like silicon dihydride, and ions) and of stable species. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of amorphous silicon films from silane will be studied in an MBMS apparatus. A near-term goal is describing the existing commercial PECVD of amorphous silicon: hydrogen, silicon dioxide, and silicon-nitrogen films with sufficient accuracy for process and product-quality control, but understanding at a molecular scale will also be later directed toward new films and applications. His goals in combustion and pyrolysis are to establish and apply detailed chemical mechanisms of oxidation and growth, particularly the formation of aromatics. He will study three carbon hydrocarbons (propane, propene, propyne, and propadiene) to determine whether three carbon radicals form benzene, whether the benzene is formed via four carbon radical pathways, and whether molecular or insertion reactions might also be involved.