Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The objective of this proposal is to develop the fundamental science and engineering of semiconductor materials and their interfaces with the oxide thin film structures. We need to develop the conceptual set of tools, chemical and physical characterization methods and engineering strategies that can be exploited to understand and design novel materials and interfaces that will undoubtedly grow in importance for nanoelectronic and optoelectronic applications.Several issues will be addressed in this program:- Growth of novel semiconductor materials for high-mobility electronic and optoelectronic applications;- Dopants distribution and their interaction with the defects in these semiconductor materials;- Understanding of fundamental diffusion and reaction processes at surfaces and interfaces;- Determination of chemical and thermal stability of functional semiconductor/oxide structures.Our approach will be based on high-resolution experimental tools to attack these central problems in interface science: Rutherford backscattering (RBS), medium energy ion scattering (MEIS), Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and electrical analysis. Materials exploration will begin with Si, SiGe, SiCAlN alloys as semiconductors, and strontium titanate and yttrium stabilized zirconia as dielectrics.