Materials Processing and Applications Laboratory


FAMU/FSU College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Prof. Peter J. Gielisse
Rm 250 (850) 487-6350 (office)
Rm 210 (850) 487-6362 (lab)
Our laboratory is presently actively involved in the three areas outlined below.

A.) Micro and Macro Electronic Applications
  1. Reactive Physical Vapor Deposition of Thin Films
    Sputter deposition (low cost) of diamond, diamond like (DLC), SiAlON and III - V compounds with emphasis on c-BN, AlN and their solid solutions, as well as "harder than diamond" films (CNx, C3N4).

    Applications are directed at active and passive devices, optical coatings, radiation resistant layers, passivation layers and multilayer thin film capacitor structures for energy storage and "cold cathode" electron emitters.

  2. Thick Film Development Deposition and processing of novel thick film pastes on various substrate types towards applications listed above but with emphasis on capacitor structures and multichip module development and packaging.
B.) Structural Applications
  1. Ultra High Strength Nano-Composites
    Materials development towards high strength - high electrical conductivity metal matrix composites and high strength ceramic matrix composites, based on nano sized particulate strengthening mechanisms.

  2. Substrate Processing
    Objective is the development of a low cost (greentape?) process to generate high strength high thermal conductivity substrates amenable to the low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) process.
C. Characterization Techniques

The laboratory has developed systems, techniques and instrumentation to support its laboratory activities.
  1. A surface characterization system based on angular resolved scattered light intensity measurement to characterize and "finger print" surfaces down to Angstrom resolutions.

  2. A method to characterize high temperature superconducting (HTC) tapes (and other magnet materials) for their characteristic current (Jc) level and distribution.

  3. In-house developed software to conduct a-priori thermal stress analysis at material interfaces such as in multilayered thin or thick film structures. This comprehensive software package is window-based and allows for analytical analyses and optimal materials searches in multilayer structures.

  4. Electro-optical micro deformation system. The Moirä interferometry based system allows high sensitivity of deformation characterization in complex material systems. The whole-field real-time technique can determine localized thermal strain in (composite) materials.
To FAMU-FSU COE Mechanical Engineering Department