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Physical principles of low-dimensional system formation taking the particle interaction into account and the creation of innovative vacuum-technological equipment with ultra-high-density plasma fluxes


Work number - P 8 FILED

Presented National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”.

Authors:
Dr.Sci. in physics and mathematics Voitenko A.I., Dr.Sci. in physics and mathematics Gabovich A.M., Dr.Sci. in physics and mathematics Gorshkov V.M., Ph.D. in physics and mathematics Korotash I.V., Dr.Sci. in engineering Kuzmichev A.I., Dr.Sci. in physics and mathematics Rudenko E.M., Ph.D. in physics and mathematics Semeniuk V.F., and Semeniuk N.I.

This scientific work is a result of the long-term work of participants in the domains of plasma physics, condensed matter, and interaction of ionic fluxes generated by a plasma medium with metal, semiconductor, and dielectric targets. In the course of many years’ researches summarized in the presented set of results, the elementary electronic and atomic-molecular processes, as well as collective phenomena inherent to multicomponent systems, were studied. Several working installations were created which are capable of sputtering targets made of metals, semiconductors, insulators, and polymers owing to the interaction of ultra-high-density ion fluxes with the target surface. Magnetron and helicon discharges can be used as effective plasma ion sources. The created equipment is being intensively used nowadays for scientific and industrial purposes, which allows film specimens with improved characteristics to be obtained. A new collective (“trampoline”) threshold mechanism of target sputtering was discovered.

An important fragment of the work is devoted to the theoretical study of the kinetics of elementary crystallization processes and the formation of nanoclusters and nanopillars. It substantially complements the scope of elementary processes governing the behavior of the nonequilibrium interface between the plasma and the solid that was studied experimentally and explains them. A powerful Monte Carlo method was applied at that, which allowed quite real, although very complex, problems of the many-body physics to be considered. A theoretical “microscopic” approach was applied to analyze elementary processes that form a surface in the course of sputtering and crystallization. Since the particles interacting near the surface are charged or have a permanent electric dipole moment, there arises a necessity in a theory describing Coulomb interaction in two- or three-layer systems. Such a theory was developed in the framework of the presented work. It describes the interaction of particles with the surface or surfaces (image forces) depending on the screening properties of the media composing the system. This result is important, e.g., for the analysis of the exciton properties in layered structures, including films sputtered with the help of experimental methods used in this work. Thus, the Coulomb interaction, which is a determining factor in the physics of plasma sources and ion sputtering, plays a major role here.

The work satisfies the experimental and theoretical criteria adopted in world science. All published results are new, important, and were verified in practice, as well as at many international forums. Some pieces of the work were carried out in co-authorship with scientists from the US, Russia and Poland. Results important for applications are covered by 12 patents, whereas the theoretical results were published in the leading English-language journals. The results obtained were systematically lectured in special courses at various faculties of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”.

Number of publications: The number of major publications relevant to the work is 103. They include 3 monographs, 7 chapters in collective monographs and conference proceedings, and 83 journal articles (48 in English-language journals with significant impact factors). According to the scientific databases, the total number of citations to those publications and the corresponding h-index of publications are, respectively, 431 and 11 for Web of Science, 438 and 10 for Scopus, and 693 and 13 for Google Scholar. The authors obtained nine patents of Ukraine and three international patents. Two doctoral and seven Ph.D. theses were defended on the given subject.