Feedback to this page: click here

Nanoscale characterization of ultra-thin metal films for nanofabrication applications

Project type: Ph.D. project
Project responsible: Matteo Todeschini
Supervisors:
Partners involved: DTU Danchip,

Project Description

The aim of this Ph.D. project is to obtain a deeper understanding of the interaction at the nanoscale level between ultra-thin metal films used in micro/nanofabrication, exploiting the unique capabilities of thin-film fabrication and characterization offered by the combination of the DTU Danchip/Cen facilities.

With the constant miniaturization of the devices and the fabrication of increasingly complex multi-material structures, the interaction between different ultra-thin layers has gained considerable importance in the field of thin-film science and technology in recent years. Therefore the characterization of such interactions in a wide range of temperatures and the description of their impact on the chemical composition, morphology and distribution of crystallographic orientations of multilayer thin-films is of utmost importance.

The project focuses in particular on the description of the interaction between noble metal films, widely used in different areas of micro- and nanofabrication, and extremely thin films of reactive transition metals, used to enhance adhesion onto the substrate - and thus referred as ``adhesion layers". Different material and multilayer combinations are investigated; particular emphasis is placed on the description and use of the recently developed transmission Kikuchi diffraction technique for the in-situ study of thin-film nanostructure evolution with changing chemical composition and temperature.