Ion beam analysis and modern materials science

Full text: Modern research has provided the means of creating materials structures controlled at the atomic scale. Familiar examples include the formation of hetero-structures grown with atomic precision, nanostructures with designed electronic properties and new organic structures employing the richness of organic chemistry. The current forefront of such materials research includes the creation of new materials for energy and electronics applications. The electron transport properties of these diverse materials, and hence their performance, is invariably linked by the basic interactions at the interface. Interfaces are the critical component, and least understood aspect, of almost all such materials-based structures. Ion beam analysis, and its role in interfacial definition, will be described in the context of a number of such forefront projects underway at the Rutgers Institute for Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology (IAMDN). These include: 1) quantitative analysis of self-assembled monolayers on organic single crystals resulting in enhanced surface mobility and more effective organic field effect transistors, 2) monolayer scale interfacial analysis of complex oxide hetero-structures to elucidate the properties of the enhanced two-dimensional electron mobility and 3) characterization of the semiconductor- dielectric interface in the SiC/SiO2 system, with application for energy efficient power transmission. Despite extraordinary advances in synthesis, interface properties continue as an uncontrolled region of hetero-materials formation. Their understanding requires the detailed analysis of a complement of tools including ion beam analysis. Fellow Researchers: R. A. Bartynski, L.C.Feldman, E. Garfunkel, T. Gustafsson, H.D. Lee, D. Mastrogiovanni, V. Podzorov, L. S. Wielunski, J. R. Williams(Auburn), G. Liu, J. Williams, S. Dhar. (author)