Faculty and Student Teams Program

Project Descriptions

Brookhaven National Laboratory
National Synchrotron Light Source Department
U4A Beamline Group

Requesting applications from science or engineering faculty members at institutions serving students underrepresented in science, engineering, mathematics and technology, to work on synchrotron based studies of electronic properties at materials interfaces for nanoelectronics, molecular electronics, and photovoltaic applications.

Project Description

The development of electronics appears to follow Moore ’s Law which predicts a continual shrinkage in device sizes.  However, as device dimensions shrink to the nanometer size, new materials and designs must be incorporated to accommodate these small dimensions.  In all of these devices, the conduction of charge from one material to another material in these devices is controlled by the electronic structure of the component parts.  In particular, electrons are carried in the conduction bands of each material, which may not be at the same energy in each material.  The object of this study is measure the energy band alignment for materials in three of these electronic systems.

1.      For next generation metal oxide semiconductors (MOS), new oxide insulators with high dielectric constants are being developed for application as on-chip capacitors and field effect transistors.  For both of these applications, the alignment of the valence and conduction bands of the oxide insulators will be determined with respect the Fermi level of the contact electrode.  Typical oxide insulators will include Ta₂O₅, Al₂O₃, (HfO₂)_x(SiO₂)_1-x, and typical contact metals will include Si, Al, and TiN.

2.      Interfaces between organic electronics and their contacts are crucial to the performance of organic electronics.  For organic light emitting diodes and organic solar cells, injection of electrons into and out of the organic semiconductor are crucial.  A series of experiments will study the alignment between the valence bands of the contact and the highest occupied molecular orbital.  Typical organic electronics will be polymers based on polyphenylenevinylene (PPV) and contacts will include Au, Indium Tin Oxide, Al, and LiF.  These results will be extended to study the alignment between conjugated molecules used for molecular electronics and underlying inorganic semiconducting substrates.

3.      The relative alignment of the valence bands of amorphous Si and doped single crystalline Si is crucial to the next generation of Si solar cells.  A program will be initiated to determine the alignment in these systems.  A large part of this study will involve sample preparation, because Si surfaces are highly reactive, and these reactions will perturb the apparent alignments.

The students and faculty would be most heavily involved with Tasks 1 and 2.  As the applicants gain experience in high vacuum systems and with chemistry, they will also become more involved in Task 3.

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 at the National Synchrotron Light Source 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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