AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Thin Film Friday Sessions
       Session TF+EM-FrM

Invited Paper TF+EM-FrM3
Real-Time X-ray Studies of Surface and Thin-Film Processes

Friday, November 17, 2006, 8:40 am, Room 2022

Session: In-Situ/Ex-Situ & Real-Time Monitoring and Characterization
Presenter: K. Ludwig, Boston University
Authors: K. Ludwig, Boston University
Y. Wang, Boston University
A. Özcan, Boston University
G. Ozaydin, Boston University
C. Sanborn, Boston University
A. Bhattacharyya, Boston University
R. Chandrasekaran, Boston University
T.D. Moustakas, Boston University
R. Headrick, University of Vermont
H. Zhou, University of Vermont
Correspondent: Click to Email
A new facility for the time-resolved x-ray study of surface and thin film processes is now in use at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) of Brookhaven National Laboratory. To promote flexibility, the base spectrometer is designed so that modest-sized processing/vacuum chambers can be rolled onto it. This design allows multiple specialized chambers to be constructed, optimized for experimentation, and then moved onto the diffractometer for real-time x-ray studies. Here results from studies of wide-bandgap group III-nitride growth on sapphire by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) will be discussed. These experiments have examined migration-enhanced epitaxy, the early stage kinetics of sapphire surface nitridation, and Ga droplet formation with subsequent nitridation to form GaN nanodots. Studies examining the spontaneous nanopatterning and smoothening of surfaces by ion bombardment will also be presented. This research is partially supported by DOE DE-FG02-03ER46037 and by NSF DMR-0507351.