Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The roots of the currently unfolding technological revolution which brought about personal computers, fast internet, digital cameras and flat panel displays-to mention just the commodity sector-can be traced directly to the advances in engineering of very thin films of artificial materials and their subsequent processing into ever smaller devices with well controlled functionalities. The highest performance electronic devices, such as transistors used in PCs, smartphones or satellites and the photonic devices such as semiconductor lasers, amplifiers and detectors which are pushing digital information with incredible rates along the optical fibers of the world wide web, are all based on highly perfect crystalline multilayers of semiconductor materials which are deposited in the so-called epitaxial process on suitably chosen crystalline substrates. The performance of these devices depends critically on the exact thicknesses and compositions of the individual sub-layers, some just a few nanometers thick. Development of the epitaxial techniques capable of such precision, related calibrations and ongoing process monitoring all require metrology tools which can be used routinely, be non-destructive and meet the strict requirements of resolution and accuracy. For the semiconductor industry and R&D which relies on epitaxial structures there is only one such tool - the High Resolution X-ray Diffractometer (HR-XRD), the subject of the present grant application. This tool is crucial to the success of the research programs hosted in and supported by the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) laboratory which is being presently set up in the new Quantum Nano Centre at the University of Waterloo and is expected to be fully operational in the second quarter of 2013. The focus of the lab will be on the epitaxial growth of advanced quantum devices based on (In, Al, Ga)(As, Sb) semiconductor materials for ground-breaking research programs in photonics, nanoelectronics, spintronics and quantum computing that address both short and long term challenges of Canadian high-tech sectors in environmental monitoring, alternative clean energy sources, health, security and ICT.