Taesoon Kwon
kwon@lps.umd.edu
Born:
Education: B.S. Materials Engineering (2001), UMCP
Current Status : 2nd year graduate student in Materials Engineering, UMCP
Advisor: R. J. Phaneuf , Materials (group webpage link)
Professional Interests: Materials science, Vacuum technology,
Thin-film growth and Surface analysis techniques
Current Projects :
I am studying the effect of “impurity patterning” on the evolution of Si surfaces during epitaxial growth. Within the regime of temperature and incident flux where incident atoms can diffuse over distances at least as large as the average terrace width before colliding with other atoms, growth is primarily by step-flow. Certain impurities retard, or even halt the motion of steps (step pinning) across the surface. The goal of my research is to investigate the patterns which evolve due to the interference of the impurity particles with step flow, as the growth parameters and the configuration of impurities are varied.
I’ve been using photolithography and electron beam evaporation of SiC, to create dots of different sizes and spacing on Si(111) surfaces, followed by Si epitaxial growth. Finally I use using tapping mode AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy, digital instruments) to examine the resulting topography.
A second aspect of my work concerns patterning the surface lithographically to form arrays of pits. The samples are prepared via photolithography and RIE (Reactive Ion Etching). Pits act as sources of steps, and can locally accelerate the motion of steps locally during growth, or sublimation.
My research is supported by the National Science Foundation
under a Materials Research Science and
(MRSEC webpage link) (LPS webpage link)
