1. Purpose:

This course will provide you with an understanding of the general science and technology involved in the growth of inorganic solid thin films and coatings and introduces you to relevant characterization techniques applied in real-time or in post-growth analysis mode. The second part of this course will be on the applications of thin film in form of projects, taking student preferences into account.

2. Thin film growth

We will start out with the science underlying the most important equipment (vacuum science and technology) and their application in practice (epitaxy, lattice engineering, metastable phases, artificial structures, novel properties in thin films). Selected topics are:

1. Physical Vapor Deposition: evaporation, sputtering, and industrial techniques (magnetron sputtering, ion plating)evaporation (thermal, molecular beam and laser);
2. Chemical Vapor Deposition and Organo-metallic Chemical Vapor Deposition
3. Thin film growth processes, epitaxy
4. The thermodynamic nature of a surface; adsorption of gases onto a surface, nucleation and the thermodynamically and kinetically controlled modes of growth of a solid film
5. Nucleation processes, growth modes, lattice mismatch, coherency strain
6. Lattice engineering: Metastable phases, artificial structures, superlattices
7. Novel physical properties: Superconductivity, giant-magnetoresistance, modulation doping and quantum wells, transparent conducting coatings

3. Thin film characterization

This part of the course will cover the ex-situ and real-time analysis of thickness, density, composition, structure, surface morphology, and strains. Topics are:

1. Polarized light by isotropic structures; Reflection / transmission;
2. Multi-layer structures: Anti reflect. coatings, Multi-Quantum wells
3. Reflection by anisotropic stratified structures; V-I-theory; Measurement of film thickness and optical constants
4. Real-time diagnostics: Reflectance Spectroscopy (normal incidence),Laser Light Scattering; Spectroscopy Ellipsometry (in reflection and in transmission); Reflectance Difference Spectroscopy; p-Polarized Reflectance Spectroscopy, Surface Photoabsorption, Control of thin film deposition
5. Ex-situ optical diagnostics: Optical microscopes and interferometers, Raman Spectroscopy, Second Harmonic Generation
6. Ex-situ diagnostics: UPS/XPS, AES, EPR and EXAFS

4. Special topics and projects

This part of the course will be a selection of the topics, taking student preferences into account. Students may choose - in consultation - from the list suggested or may introduce a own topic relevant to this course. Suggested topics are:

1. Atomic processes in adsorption:
   a) Precursor decomposition kinetics;
   b) Gas kinetics and diffusion processes;
   c) Surface processes in physi- and chemi-sorption;
   d) Chemisorption and chemical reactions;
   e) Stabilization of growth surface - equilibrium and off-equilibrium methods;
   
2. Growth mechanisms in heteroepitaxy:
   a) Supersaturation model as driving force of the growth;
   b) Surface steps and crystal growth;
   c) Surface diffusion, phase transitions and facetting;
   d) Growth modes and nucleation barriers, atomistic models and rate equations;
   e) Experimental and model studies, strain relaxation mechanisms;
   f) Mechanism for self-assembly; g) Pattern formation.
3. Thin film device concepts and applications of thin films
   1) Multi-tandem solar cells
   2) Solar-blind AlGaN-detectos
   3) Ring disc laser: concept, physics and present status
   4) Photonic Crystals: symmetry and electromagnetism in solids
   5) Photonic Crystals: reflectors, cavities/traps, diffractive elements
   6) Spintronics: concept and potential application
   7) Spintronics: materials reviews and device structures
   8) Surface plasmons: generation and EM progagation
   9) Nanophotonics