Particle beam interactions with materials

Interaction of particle beams with matter is a keyword in several scientific and technological research fields. Our group has gained a 30 years experience in this field and is developing several works with applications in microelectronics, biomedicine and astrophysics. A large amount of results on semiconductors, polymers and other organic thin film systems were obtained.

Nanostructured and nanocomposite thin films

Clusters in the nanometer size range are obtained by several chemical and physical methods. These include ion irradiation, laser ablation and chemical reactions. The nanoparticles are frequently embedded in several matrices to be suitably supported and to change their optical and transport properties. Presently, laser ablation is mainly used in a cluster beam generator that couples the ablation process to an adiabatic expansion of the plume. A collimated low energy cluster beam is obtained and handled. The experiments are centred on semiconductor materials mainly silicon and carbon. Materials with such a high surface/volume ratios are also studied “in situ” inside the deposition chamber with an optical characterization (Raman, Luminescence and IR).  Moreover a number of chemical recipes are also used to produce metallic particles embedded in several insulating matrices.

Impact in the research activities

In the past five years over 40 publications, over 5 invited talks, and a plenary talk have resulted from this work. Moreover our group is developing many potential applications in the field of materials for microelectronics working in collaboration with STMicroelectronics by using a series of instrumentation located in its Catania site. We also have a strong link with the astrophysics group for the simulation of materials located outsize the earth atmosphere.