CAREER: Structure-Property Relation Studies in Functional Metal-Oxide Thin Films and Photon Effects

非技术描述可再生能源技术将成为我们未来能源的重要组成部分。尤其是氧化物材料，在实现固体氧化物燃料电池等清洁能源以及通过水裂解生产氢气方面可能发挥重要作用。该项目旨在探索利用光激发技术合成能源材料的新方法。这种方法通过独特地改变氧结合的热力学和动力学，在原子尺度上实现了对固体近表面区域的成分控制。能够合成先进的陶瓷材料，其功能特性可以以原子精度设计，这对推动能源技术将是重要的。这项研究还将使学生能够在可再生能源材料的前沿领域进行教育。技术检测金属氧化物陶瓷薄膜的突出问题是近表面点缺陷和成分调制在决定功能特性方面的作用。缺陷可以影响静电势，也可以影响载流子导电的性质。这项拨款旨在研究如何将光激发作为一种新的方法来控制超薄氧化物薄膜的成分和结构。它还将研究在光激发下影响氧结合到氧化物中的基本机制。这些问题将通过一系列旨在区分化学效应和光电效应的实验方法来探索。利用具有代表性的氧化物材料，将进行研究，以了解如何合成表面组成和结构可控的氧化物陶瓷，这反过来又会影响从离子传导到相变的功能性质。这笔赠款将进一步促进研究生和本科生的教育，以及在材料科学和可再生能源等对社会重要的前沿领域的最先进仪器方面的实践研究经验。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONRenewable energy technologies are slated to be an important part of our future energy sources. Oxide materials in particular may play an important role in enabling clean energy sources such as solid oxide fuel cells; and hydrogen production by water splitting. The project seeks to explore novel approaches to synthesize energy materials utilizing the technique of photo-excitation. This approach enables compositional control in near-surface regions in solids at atomic scale by uniquely modifying the thermodynamics and kinetics of oxygen incorporation. The ability to synthesize advanced ceramic materials whose functional properties can be designed with atomic precision will be of importance to advancing energy technologies. The research will also enable education of students in frontier areas of renewable energy materials.TECHNICAL DETAILSAn outstanding question in metal-oxide ceramic thin films is the role of near-surface point defects and compositional modulations in determining functional properties. Defects can affect electrostatic potentials as well as influence the nature of carrier conduction. The grant aims to investigate how photo-excitation can be used as a novel approach to control composition and structure of ultra-thin oxide films. It will also examine the elementary mechanisms affecting oxygen incorporation into oxides under photo-excitation. These issues will be explored by a combination of experimental approaches that aim to distinguish chemical from photo-electric effects. Using representative oxide materials, research will be carried out to understand how one may synthesize oxide ceramics with controllable surface composition and structure, which in turn affects functional properties ranging from ionic conduction to phase transitions. The grant will further enable graduate and undergraduate student education and hands-on research experience in state-of-the-art instrumentation in frontier areas of materials science and renewable energy that are important to society.