Surface and Interfaces Research Laboratory – Hughes (DCU)

Title of Research Group: Surface and Interface Research Laboratory

Principal Investigator: Prof Greg Hughes, Dr. Rob O’Connor

Institution: Dublin City University

School: School of Physical Sciences

Research:
Our research insterests are primarily focused on understanding metal/semiconductor, metal/dielectric, and semidconcutor/dielectric interfaces for advanced CMOS applications. We are partilcuarly interested in researching potential new materials for use in CMOS interconnect architecture. Synchrotron radiation-based studies are invaluable in furthering our understanding of the chemical interactions at the interfaces between these materials. Most recently our research focus has been on materials for area-selective deposition.

Techniques: HAXPES, XPS, XAS, XES, ARPES

Facilities: Soleil, France; Diamond Light Source, UK; PETRA III, DESY, Germany; and NSLS, USA and ASTRID II, ISA, Denmark..

Beamlines:

Group (as of 2017): 3 Ph.D. and 1 PDRA

Participating group members at SR/FEL/neutron facilities (period 2008-2017):
Lee Walsh (PhD), Anthony McCoy (PhD/PD), Conor Byrne (PhD), Justin Bogan (PhD/PD), Barry Brennan (PhD), Rob O’Connor (Academic), Greg Hughes (Academic), Patrick Casey (PhD/Pd)

Impact: Synchrotron radiation based studies have helped with our understanding of the material systems for CMOS interconnect applications. They have been of particular interest to collaborating scientists at Intel, Portland and we continue to collaborate with other labs who recognise the benefits synchrotron studies bring to materials research. Our research ties in with Ireland’s prioritisation of research in the area of Processing Technologies and Novel Materials and has led to significant funding in recent years.

Access to synchrotron facilities has underpinned our research in recent years and allowed us to further explore observations in our day-to-day work at state-of-the-art facilities.

Publication Highlights:

• Synchrotron radiation photoemission study of in situ manganese silicate formation on SiO₂ for barrier layer applications, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 113508 (2011). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3567926.
• Ni-(In, Ga) As alloy formation investigated by hard-X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy, Phys. Rev. Applied 2, 064010 (2014). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.2.064010.
• Synchrotron radiation study of metallic titanium deposited on dielectric substrates, J. Vac. SCi. Tech. B, 36, 040602 (2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1116/1.5036943.

Website:https://www.dcu.ie/physics/materials-growth-and-characterisation.shtml