Advanced Materials

General Information About our Research Group

The LSU materials thrust includes diverse research projects that focus on advanced materials for the microelectronic, MEMS and specialty chemicals industries. Research involves using electrochemical techniques, chemical vapor deposition and wet chemical processing methods to deposit thin films, .nanowires, nanoparticles and bulk forms. The resulting materials are useful for a variety of applications, including heterogeneous catalysis, fuel cell technology, biological and chemical sensing, and magnetic storage. Research is interdisciplinary with collaborations within the Center for BioModular Multi-Scale Systems and through a NSF-IGERT for macromolecular studies. Unique facilities exist at LSU to support materials research including a synchrotron radiation source at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD), providing x-ray lithography facilities and surface science analyses (e.g. XANES, EXAFS). Microscopy facilities are also available in the Materials Characterization Facility in the College of Engineering. Currently both graduate and undergraduate students are actively engaged in research and present their results at national/international meetings sponsored, for example, by AIChE, ECS and MRS.

Computer simulations are also used to complement experimental efforts in materials, assist in the interpretation of experimental results and provide insights to experimental efforts in materials.

Short Intro - Materials Effort in ChE
 

Professors Involved:

Dr. Kerry M. Dooley

We are working on the development of new catalysts, materials and reactors for the hydrogenation/dehydrogenation of polymers and oligomers, the desulfurization of diesel and biofuels, hot gas desulfurization of gasifier (coal and bio) effluents, and catalytic upgrading of the acids fraction of biomass pyrolysis liquids. The common feature in all projects is the catalysis of mixed metal oxides and supported metals. Several projects involve rare eath oxide catalysts.

For more information see my personal webpage.

Dr. John C. Flake

Professor Flake's research group focuses on materials and materials processing. See John Flake's research web page for more information. Current research projects include:

• Silicon Nanowire Fabrication and Processing
  
  
• 3D Through-Silicon Via Processing
  
  
• Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)
  
  
• Surface Chemistry, Wafer Cleaning, Chemical Mechanical Polishing
  
  
• Corrosion and Electrochemical Etching

Dr. Gregory L. Griffin

Current research project:

• Chemical vapor deposition of palladium seed layers for copper electroless deposition
  
  An area of interest to the microelectronic industry is the use of a very thin Pd layer (< 3 nm thick) to act as a seed layer for depositing copper interconnect wires on ultra-large scale integrated circuits (e.g., microprocessors and advanced memory chips). We have developed a batch CVD process for uniformly depositing small amounts of a metalorganic Pd precursor over large areas of an inert substrate. Future work aims at improving the mechanical and electrical properties of the copper electroless film (e.g., adhesion and resistivity), to study Pd deposition on different substrate materials of interest as copper diffusion barriers, and to examine the batch CVD process for depositing other noble metals.

Prof. Francisco R. Hung

Nanoporous materials and confined systems, liquid crystals, self- and
directed assembly at the nanoscale, computational modeling and
molecular simulation.

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