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

Many of the technologies we depend on in the modern world are based on the innovative use of materials that display novel electronic, magnetic, electrical, thermal or optical properties. The periodic table gives us almost unlimited ability to synthesize new materials - the challenge is to understand and control them so they can be harnessed for useful purposes. A sub-class of materials that is particularly important to this development effort is ""single crystals"". These are materials in which the atomic alignment extends across macroscopic dimensions, and they are available both as stand-alone materials (""bulk single crystals"") and as thin layers grown on top of a substrate (""thin films""). The synthesis of materials in single-crystal form is essential both for understanding their fundamental behaviour, and for controlling and utilizing their purity, anisotropy and dimensionality in device applications. Simon Fraser University has a long tradition of excellence in single-crystal synthesis ranging from ultra-fast semiconductors, to thin magnetic films for spintronics, to functional oxides in which the interplay between electrical, magnetic, mechanical and optical properties can be tailored and exploited. The most important primary technique for characterizing single-crystal materials is x-ray diffraction. The equipment requested in this proposal will upgrade existing x-ray facilities at SFU, in order to obtain several important new capabilities essential to materials synthesis. The first upgrade will give us the ability to thoroughly characterize thin-film materials, using so-called ""in-plane diffraction"" and ""reflectivity"" measurements. This will allow accurate measurements of strain, density, roughness and layer thickness to be carried out in thin-film samples. The second upgrade is a digital imaging system for x-ray diffraction on bulk single crystals. This will replace an outdated Polaroid camera system, for which Polaroid film is no longer manufactured, by a computer-controlled imaging system with several new capabilities, such as automated orientation.