REU Project 3

REU Project 3

Measurement of Diamond Thin Film Growth Rate using Laser Reflectance Interferometry (LRI), (Faculty Mentors - Dr. John T. Tarvin and Dr. Yogesh Vohra, Samford University

Measurement of Diamond Thin Film Growth Rate using Laser Reflectance Interferometry (LRI), (Faculty Mentors - Dr. John T. Tarvin and Dr. Yogesh Vohra, Samford University): Chemical Vapor Deposition of diamond films is currently operational in the materials physics laboratory at UAB. The success of this method is critically dependent on temperature, as well as gas mixture, etc. The film growth rate is a complicated function of these parameters; it is desirable to be able to monitor this growth rate in real time as a function of these parameters. One method of accomplishing this is to optically monitor the thin-film interference of a laser beam bounced off the growing film. The reflectance of this beam shows maxima and minima as a function of film thickness. This technique is referred to as laser reflectance interferometry. An important part of this project will be the familiarization of the student with the mathematical analysis of the data and the development of a computer code (PC platform) to perform this analysis. In the last four years, Neeta Toprani, Jeremy Perkins, Mary Jane Mckenzie, and Douglas White have done research in diamond thin films and published their work in the Journal of Materials Research [4] and presented results at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and at the American Physical Society meetings [5-6].): Chemical Vapor Deposition of diamond films is currently operational in the materials physics laboratory at UAB. The success of this method is critically dependent on temperature, as well as gas mixture, etc. The film growth rate is a complicated function of these parameters; it is desirable to be able to monitor this growth rate in real time as a function of these parameters. One method of accomplishing this is to optically monitor the thin-film interference of a laser beam bounced off the growing film. The reflectance of this beam shows maxima and minima as a function of film thickness. This technique is referred to as laser reflectance interferometry. An important part of this project will be the familiarization of the student with the mathematical analysis of the data and the development of a computer code (PC platform) to perform this analysis. In the last four years, Neeta Toprani, Jeremy Perkins, Mary Jane Mckenzie, and Douglas White have done research in diamond thin films and published their work in the Journal of Materials Research [4] and presented results at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) and at the American Physical Society meetings [5-6].