Faculty and Student Teams Program

Project Descriptions

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department
Center for Functional Nanomaterials

Requesting applications from condensed matter physics or material science faculty members at institutions serving students underrepresented in science, engineering, mathematics and technology, to work on transport, structural and optical studies of quench condensed metal films with the emphasis on nano-scale properties.

Project Description

Initial experiments have indicated that metals deposited onto carbon nanotubes at low temperatures have nucleation properties that are different from that of those evaporated onto usual “flat” substrates.  In some intuitive sense this is to be expected since now the curvature of the nanotube substrate is of the order of the curvature of the deposited nanoparticle (~ 20 Å).  The main goal of this project will be to increase our understanding of this problem on the nano-scale. The experimental tools that are available at Brookhaven National Laboratory for this work include transmission electron microscopy, electrical transport, and optical transmission measurements.

Over the summer it is expected that the furnaces and equipment for making various nanotubes will be available and the experiments will include the following: 

1.                  Different thicknesses of Au films will be evaporated onto microscope slides as well as slides that will be used for transport measurements.  Evaporations can occur at temperatures from 90K to room temperature.  Some of the work will be to investigate gold on carbon nanotubes pre-deposited with a-Ge.

2.                  Transport measurements will be well suited for students, and there are plans to setup an apparatus to measure resistances as large as 10¹² ohms.

3.                  It will be interesting to see if optical transmission measurements can be understood in terms of the microscopy and transport measurements.  Ultimately an understanding of the optical properties of these quench condensed metal films can lead to “contactless” ac transport measurements.

4.                  X-ray scattering is another technique that can reveal the properties of metal films on nanotubes and as understanding increases it will be possible to use this technique in addition to those mentioned above.

The students and faculty participating in this project would be involved with all aspect of the work listed above: including sample preparation, data collection and data analysis.  Continued interaction between the FaST and BNL scientists during the regular academic semesters is highly desired. 

Applicants Responsibilities and Relationship to Project

Applicants will receive support under the Department of Energy Faculty Student Team Research Program (FaST) to work collaboratively with the project research team at BNL for up to 10 weeks during the year starting in June of 2006.  Summer and academic year visits to BNL will be scheduled by mutual agreement between staff in the Physics department and the successful applicant. Ideally faculty will work at BNL on the project for 10 weeks during the summer in the first year. Faculty will be expected to identify students from their campus to participate in the FaST program offered by the Department of Energy at BNL. Faculty will provide some mentorship and/or advising support to students during the summer research activities. It is expected that the Faculty member will become an integral part of the research team working on this project and will support the project through the academic year on her or his campus.

Qualifications of Ideal Candidate

Support and Financial Commitments

See Financial Information.

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