Fundamental Investigations of Nanoscale Phenomena in Beam-Assisted Nucleation, Growth and Surface Smoothing, Using in situ LEEM (open access)

Fundamental Investigations of Nanoscale Phenomena in Beam-Assisted Nucleation, Growth and Surface Smoothing, Using in situ LEEM

The purposes for which this grant was provided were specifically (1) to construct a tandem instrument that combined a low energy electron microscope (LEEM) with an ion beam source capably of irradiating a sample during observation of the surface using LEEM; and (2) to employ the new machine to whatever degree possible to observe the evolution of clean crystal surfaces during ion beam irradiation. A principal motivation was to investigate the fundamental behavior of radiation damage under circumstances for which the damage can be observed directly in real time as it occurs. A second main motivation was to create tunable perturbations of the defect (adatom and advacancy) equilibrium on clean crystal planes and in this way explore the fundamental kinetics of surface behavior that enters into numerous phenomena of interest to DOE including surface erosion, catalysis, and the damage to crystals caused by impacts of energetic particles. The funding has been employed to successfully pursue all the original goals, and additional opportunities that developed as a result of discoveries made in this research.
Date: November 5, 2008
Creator: Flynn, Colin P.
System: The UNT Digital Library