Group IV nanostructures,
from the galaxy
to the integrated circuit fab ... and back?
UM-StL and regional
activities...
Outline
Materials Astronomy
Collaborators
Given a universe with (3+1)D
extended, plus a few universal constants, a periodic table like this
follows. Here, we’ll focus on C, O and
Si.
Adventure on variable size
scales: Vertical versus lateral ranges, on a log scale from the Planck Length
to something like the size of the Universe.
Scanning electron
microscopes
Transmission electron
microscopes
Modular web/lab nanoscale
science practicals courses designed to create critically-informed consumers of
data in impacted fields
Web simulators are aiding
development of empirical observation challenges, in lecture & even timed
tests, for lots of courses given the everyday relevance of multiscale insight
in days ahead...
Dynamic imaging secondary
ion mass spectrometers, & WU’s nanoSIMS…
Time scales
Interstellar Dust
in
the Lab
Specimen prep: looks like an
IC fab, but it’s materials astronomers, in this case playing with
interplanetary dust…
Lot’s of stuff can happen on
a long trip…
C/O>1 giant stars: machines able to manufacture carbon atoms,
and facilitate their condensation…
Silicon carbide
from
long ago, far away...
Some highlights of SiC
isotopery; for updates check out... http://presolar.wustl.edu/research.html
Presolar nanodiamonds
Here’s a 200 mesh grid
square of one ultra-microtome section
Zooming In: Is that thing
round?
Zooming In: Onion Found!
Homegrown onions in
HREM: Rim layers in pre-solar onions
are similar to this
Diffraction from Presolar
Onion Rims and Cores
Simulated diffraction from
graphene flakes
Comparing C images with
increasing order, from Ap J Lett 578, 2 (2002) L153-156
A closer look at part of the
2nd inset in the previous slide, contrast reversed…
Cyclopentane formation
models…
Grains from stars with
C/O<1…
Future work on onion cores
Zooming in to smaller and
smaller time scales, we find ourselves on a planet with surface carbon
declining, but Si-logic improving by leaps and bounds...
A ferrofluid nanoparticle,
in development for brain aneurism repair.
An even closer look shows…
…details of the surface
defects (in this case steps on (111) facets) that the magnetite grains offer to
the external world.
Nano-darkfield, e.g. using
disparate samples from chemistry and physics at UM-R, has helped us develop a
“new” application area to drive future innovations in mathematical harmonic
analysis...
…and at buried interfaces
(e.g. Si/SiGe for the gigascale Si device industry), the mapping of picometer
sized displace-ments, and associated strain components.
Nanoscale science synopsis
Back to the galaxy?