Recent Developments in Biological, Structural and Functional Thin Films and Coatings: Functional Thin Films and Coatings II
Sponsored by: TMS Functional Materials Division, TMS: Thin Films and Interfaces Committee
Program Organizers: Adele Carrado, University of Strasbourg; Heinz Palkowski, Clausthal University of Technology; Gerald Ferblantier, University of Strasbourg - IUT LP / ICube Laboratory - CNRS; Ramana Chintalapalle, University of Texas at El Paso; Nuggehalli Ravindra, New Jersey Institute of Technology; Nancy Michael, University of Texas at Arlington; Vikas Tomar, Purdue University

Wednesday 8:30 AM
February 26, 2020
Room: Oceanside
Location: Marriott Marquis Hotel

Session Chair: Ravindra Nuggehalli, New Jersy Institute of Technology; Ramana Chintalapalle, University of Texas at El Paso


8:30 AM  Keynote
Tailoring the Thermal, Mechanical, and Acoustic Properties of Sub-surfaces through Ion Beam Modification: Khalid Hattar1; 1Sandia National Laboratories
    Ion beam modification is well known to tailor the electrical properties of materials; however, the potential of the technique to alter the thermal, mechanical, and acoustic properties of thin films and coatings is often overlooked. By careful selection of the ion species, energy, and dose, the thermal conductivity and thermal boundary conductance of an interface can be controlled. In a similar manner, the mechanical and acoustic properties of the surface and subsurface can be modified. This presentation will highlight recent advancements in ion beam modification as well as some in-situ characterization tools that permit rapid characterization of the thermal, mechanical, and acoustic properties of sub-surfaces, as they are being tailored. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

9:10 AM  
Tailoring Optical and Structural Properties of Metal-dielectric Composite Thin Films: Lirong Sun1; John Grant1; John Jones1; Neil Murphy1; Jonathan Vernon1; 1Air Force Research Laboratory
    The Ag-dielectric composite thin films were prepared in multi-layer stacks. A medium layer was done by simultaneously sputtering Ag and SiO2 targets using DC/pulse DC magnetron sputtering techniques in a pure Argon atmosphere and sandwiched between host material SiO2 (Al2O3). The stack was tailored by varying co-sputtering time and host material. The optical properties were studied in the wavelength of 200 – 2000 nm using complementary characterization techniques such as transmittance and reflectance UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The results show that the co-sputtered Ag-SiO2 composite thin film coalescences faster and much uniform than a pure Ag film deposited at the same condition. The absorption peak of the films shifts towards longer wavelength and reflectance increases in the NIR and IR regions with increasing silver content. The optical properties were further correlated to the chemical composition, crystalline structure, film density and surface morphology by XPS, XRD, XRR and SEM measurements.

9:30 AM  
Structure, Morphology and Electrical Properties of Nanocrystalline Niobium Films: Nivedita Lalitha Raveendran1; Avery Haubert2; Ramana Chintalapalle1; 1University of Texas; 2University of California, Santa Barbara
    Niobium (Nb) thin films are widely known for their potential industrial and engineering applications in solar cells, buffer/contact layers in electronics and superconducting devices. In this work, we report on the structure, morphology and electrical properties of Nb thin films made by rf magnetron sputtering. Nb thin films were fabricated on Si (100) with varying substrate temperatures (RT-700oC) and deposition pressures (3-25 mtorr). The effect of processing conditions was significant on the structure and properties of Nb films. The films deposited at higher substrate temperature and lower pressure exhibited higher degree of crystallinity and electrical conductance. The results will be presented and discussed to establish a correlation between processing conditions, structure and electrical characteristics of nanocrystalline Nb films.

9:50 AM Break

10:10 AM  
Sputtered Coating Optimization for Architected Structures: Alina Garcia Taormina1; Chantal Kurpiers2; Ruth Schwaiger2; Andrea Hodge1; 1University of Southern California; 2Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Architected structures have garnered great interest due to their ability to achieve exceptional combinations of material properties and for their potential applications—ranging from photonics to tissue engineering. These structures have been further functionalized through the deposition of ceramic and metallic coatings by common techniques such as atomic layer deposition and electrodeposition. However, these techniques are limited to mainly oxides and single element metallic coatings. Therefore, in this study we investigate the optimization of deposition parameters for magnetron sputtering, a coating technique which allows for the deposition of a wide range of engineering metals and alloys. Specifically, coating uniformity studies between planar and 360 degree line-of-sight sputtering configurations were conducted in order to explore magnetron sputtering as a viable approach for coating architected structures. Improvements in the coating capabilities of architected materials are crucial for the development and expansion of the working space of advanced materials with designed architectures.

10:30 AM  
Pulsed-Laser Deposition and Characterization of β-Ga2O3 Thin Films: Vishal Zade1; Mallesham Bandi1; Ramana Chintalapalle1; 1University of Texas at El Paso
    β-Ga2O3 is a fascinating material for application in field effect transistors, switching memories, high temperature gas sensors, photocatalysts, deep-UV photodetector and transparent conducting electrodes. However, fabricating device quality thin films and understanding the structure-property relationship is quite important to exploit β-Ga2O3 into device applications. In this context, the present work was performed to deposit polycrystalline Ga-oxide films by pulsed-laser deposition and characterize them to understand the structure-property correlation. β-Ga2O3 films were fabricated under variable conditions and the effect of processing conditions on the crystal structure, morphology and optical properties has been studied in detail. A more detailed account of structure, growth behavior and optical properties of β-Ga2O3 will be presented and discussed.