Up Close: Science of Materials at Trinity College, University of Dublin
- PDF / 4,897,275 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 604.8 x 806.4 pts Page_size
- 94 Downloads / 163 Views
Materials Science at Trinity Collège, University of Dublin, Ireland, has a distinguished past as well as a promising future. Trinity Collège published the first book on optics in English by Molyneux (1692). The work of Hamilton, Lloyd, Fitzgerald and others in the 19th century are impressive antécédents for today's research as well, which now enjoys broader horizons and new research opportunities due to major funding by the European Community (EC) and other agencies. In the Departments of Chemistry and Pure and Applied Physics, internationally recognized research groups are pursuing materials-oriented research in laser physics and nonlinear optics, surfaces and interfaces, magnetic materials, polymers, and theoretical solid-state physics and chemistry. The current research, described in the following two sections, has for many years resulted from close collaboration in the materials area among researchers in both departments. Common interests hâve led the departments to establish an honors degree course in the science of materials. The final section discusses the aims of this course. Materials Research in the Physics Department Lasers and Nonlinear Optics Prof. John Hegarty's semiconductor optoelectronics research group is investigating the optical properties of new semiconductor materials and structures. Excitonic effects in quantum well and superlattice structures of III-V and II-VI
MRS BULLETIN/MAY 1990
materials are studied using a variety of linear and nonlinear picosecond laser techniques. In the device area, short puise génération by mode-locking in semiconductor diodes is producing ultrashort tunable puise trains. This research group, one of five in Ireland comprising a national research organization called "Optronics Ireland," presently dérives funding from the Irish government. The group's overall purpose is to develop advanced facilities for epitaxial growth, materials characterization, and device design modeling, fabrication and testing. Figure 1 indicates an example of current research, hère a II-VI multiquantum well structure of ZnS/
Substrate
GaAs
ZnTe layers. Thèse wide bandgap materials may make it possible for semiconductor lasers to span the visible région of the spectrum. Dr. Werner Blau heads a particularly active research team studying nonlinear optical materials. In research funded by the EC optical communications (RACE) program, his group is developing optical switches using semiconducting polymers such as the polydiacetylenes. They are also studying optical bistability, phase conjugation, logic and image processing with materials ranging from semiconductor-doped glasses to superconducting ceramics, using lasers extending from ultraviolet to far infrared. In coDaboration with the magnetism group, the high Tc superconductors are produced as sintered ceramics, single crystals, and thick and thin films, the latter by laser ablation déposition. The group characterizes the electronic and magnetic properties of the superconductors and explores their potential as nonlinear optical éléments, in u
Data Loading...
