A new course on epitaxial heterostructures will be offered this fall by Prof. Roberto Myers as a special graduate elective aimed at graduate students working on thin films or heterostructures.
The course is listed as: MATSCEN 7194 – 0010 Group Studies in Materials Science and Engineering. The course description and topics are listed below.
Description: This course reviews the science and techniques behind thin film growth and engineering for combining different materials, altering chemical composition at the nanometer scale, while controlling defects and strain. Specific inorganic materials to be discussed include III-V compounds, oxides, and metals. This course will be attended by MSE and ECE students, Chemistry, and Physics in the areas of functional materials, solid state electronics, and photonics. The fundamentals of epitaxial crystal growth will be explained. Students will gain an understanding of the kinetics, thermodynamics, and technology involved in epitaxial heterostructures and self-assembled nanostructures.
1) Intro to Vacuum science: pumps, gauges, mean free path, baking (1 week)
2) Standard epi characterization: RHEED, HRXRD, AFM (1 week)
3) Thin film kinetics versus thermodynamics (1week)
4) Comparing growth methods (MBE versus MOCVD, sputtering, PLD). (1week)
5) adatom mobility, sticking coefficient, surface diffusion (1week)
6) growth modes: Volmer-Weber, Stranski-Krastinow, Frank–van der Merwe (1 week)
7) misfit, threading dislocations, strain relaxation (critical thickness) (1week)
8) Impurity doping: techniques, calibration, uniformity, incorporation during growth, diffusion, amphotericity and autocompensation (1week)
9) Advanced electronic/optical design tools: quantum wells, modulation doping, polarization doping. (1week)
10) Digital superlattices, DBRs, multi quantum wells (1week)
11) Self-assembled nanostructures: quantum dots, nanowires (1week)
12) Case studies: Limited solubility and metastable phases, GaMnAs (1week)
13) Case studies: Epitaxy of dissimilar materials, ErAs/GaAs (1week)
14) Case studies: nanowire heterostructures, strain accommodation (1week)