Solid State Dewetting-Mediated Aggregation of Particles

Structure assembly on surfaces is a field of intense research because of its potential for building devices and device arrays at the nanoscale. An important issue for such assembly is the interaction between the structure material and the surface, since these interactions impose severe restrictions on both structure formation and assembly. A novel and robust way of circumventing the growth restrictions of atomic depostion onto a surface is buffer-layer-assisted growth (BLAG). In BLAG, clusters are formed spontaneously when atoms of a material of choice are vapor-deposited onto a thin buffer layer, which is subsequently removed to deliver the structures formed on the buffer to the substrate. Typical buffers consist of thin layers of rare gas solids that have been grown at 20-50 K. The properties of the resulting structures are dependent on the interaction of the deposited species with the buffer rather than with the substrate, making possible a wide range of nanostructure/support systems that cannot be formed by conventional deposition techniques. The size, shape, and number density of the structures can be controlled by varying the amount of material deposited and the thickness of the buffer layer.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Materials Science and Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Palmer, Jacob S.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Weaver, John H.

• Engineering, Materials Science

Identifier

(UMI)AAI3314864

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/72161