REU Project 5

REU Project 5

Metal-Oxide Thin Films Using Sol-Gel Processing (Faculty Mentor – Dr. Andrei Stanishevsky)

Dr. Stanishevski joined the physics faculty at UAB in 2002 and is establishing a new research laboratory on metal-oxide materials and structures. Sol-gel processing is one of the research directions in this laboratory, and it focuses on artificially engineered metal-oxide thin-film systems for bio-medical, sensor, and optical applications. The sol-gel technique is widespread in industry, and it offers many advantages for the fabrication of coatings, including excellent control of the material’s stoichiometry, ease of compositional modifications, relatively low sintering temperatures, the possibility of coating deposition on large-area substrates, and simple and inexpensive equipment. In this project, the REU students will learn the basics of a sol-gel technique to synthesize various semi-conducting metal oxide thin films from organic and inorganic precursors, and the characterization and control of the electrical properties of the films that are used for environmental sensors. The students will establish the relationship between the processing parameters and the electric properties of the prepared materials.