Simulated systems contain five or more oxides in order to adequately model the actual materials that are used for radioactive waste storage. Because of the size of these systems, semiempirical potentials have to be designed that accurately describe the interactions between the various components. The focus of this program is to provide an understanding of the basic processes of damage formation by heavy-ion irradiation of metal systems. Transmission electron microscopy is used extensively to characterize the damage structure as a function of ion dose and irradiation temperature. Specifically, we are interested in understanding the effect of increasing the Al content on the ion dose needed to cause amorphization in the AlGaAs system and the mechanisms of mixing in AlGaAs-GaAs heterostructures.
Ion implantation is used extensively in the semiconductor industry to introduce dopants.
The accompanying damage must be removed before devices can be activated. The focus of this effort is on understanding the mechanisms of solid-phase epitaxial crystallization of amorphous material in simple and compound semiconductors.