Faculty

C.A. Brau, J.H. Dickerson, L.C. Feldman, R.F. Haglund, A.B. Hmelo, N.H. Tolk, and Robert A. Weller

Research Associates

Sungho Choi, Sarit Dhar, Yuri Glinka,Yingying Jiang, Rene Lopez, Marcela Redigolo, Yongwei Song, and Trevor Wang

Graduate Students

Hui Fang, Matthew McMahon, and Michael Morris

Undergraduate Students

Susan McFerrin and Jonathan Pellish

The overall goal is to pursue the physics of materials at a most fundamental level, and create solid structures with new properties. The work may be classified as applied physics and makes use of many of the concepts of semiconductor technology.

Specific areas under study include the physics of the Si/SiO2 interface. This interface is the heart of the current transistor and is the limiting element in the progress of silicon based technology. Our work addresses the properties of the interface and the control of this structure to unprecedented levels. In a new program, we are applying this interface knowledge to new semiconductors, particularly silicon carbide, which is an important material for high temperature and high power environments.

Another program concerns new organic materials and their possibility as semiconductor replacements. We have an active collaboration in the science of organic light emitting diodes and the interfacial science critical to these structures.

In the field of nanostructures we are pursuing cluster science, with its many fascinating ramifications. Cluster materials, ~ 100 atoms in size, represent a transition from the atomic to the solid state, and provide great insight into the behavior of few atom systems. Cluster solids also display intriguing new optical properties, based on their unusual quantum configurations. Our program deals with the controlled fabrication of these structures and measurements of their properties.

Progress in thin film science results from the innovative fabrication of materials and the precise analysis of their structures. We have developed and employ a unique collection of ion scattering probes which determine material structures with unprecedented accuracy.

1. "Fundamentals of Surface and Thin Film Analysis," L.C. Feldman and J. W. Mayer, (New York: North Holland-Elsevier, 1986); translated into Japanese, Kaibundo Publishing (1988); translated into Russian, MIR Publishing (1989).

2. "High Energy Ion Scattering," L.C. Feldman in “Surface Science - The First Thirty Years,” ed. by C.B. Duke, (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1994).

3. "Equilibrium Shape of Silicon," D.J. Eaglesham, A.E. White, L.C. Feldman, N. Moiya, D.C. Jacobson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1643 (1993).

4. "Instrumentation and Laboratory Practice," Chapter 11, p. 301, “Scattering and Reaction Kinematics,” Appendix 4, p. 411, and “Thin-Film Materials and Preparation,” Appendix 16, p. 663, Robert A. Weller, in J.R. Tesmer and Michael Nastasi, ends., “Handbook of Modern Ion Beam Materials Analysis,” Materials Research Society, Pittsburgh, PA, 1995.

5. "Analysis of a thin, silicon-oxide, silicon-nitride multilayer target by time-of-flight medium energy backscattering," Weller, R.A., McDonald, K., Pedersen, D., and Keenan, J.A., Nucl. Instrum. Methods B118 (1996) 556-559.