Speaker: Dr. Jayakanth Ravichandran, Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089.
Title: Thin Film Growth of Highly Vapor Pressure Mismatched Materials
Abstract: Highly vapor pressure mismatched materials such as chalcogenide perovskites and transition metal dichalcogenides, have at least two components that have mismatched vapor pressure, precursor reactivity and surface adatom mobility. These materials have gained significant interest for a variety of applications ranging for solid state energy conversion (photovoltaics), and opto-electronic and electronic device applications. First, I will outline the challenges for thin film growth of such highly vapor pressure mismatched materials, with predominant focus on transition metal sulfides of a variety of chemistries. Then, I will introduce some of the recent breakthroughs in the growth of such materials in thin film form. Specifically, I will outline our efforts to grow epitaxial thin films of sulfides with varying chemistries, and a specific case of textured films grown on a variety of surfaces (single crystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous). Finally, I will also provide an outlook and future perspectives on opportunities and challenges for the growth of these materials, and their applications.