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Energy ≠ Heat: DARPA Seeks Non-Thermal Approaches to Thin-Film Deposition |
This story was retrieved from the DARPA website. Neither DARPA nor any other entity
represented in the article endorses this website.
Energy ≠ Heat: DARPA seeks non-thermal approaches
to thin-film deposition
April 26, 2012
 Chemistry
and physics researchers wanted to develop new approaches to reactant flux, surface mobility, reaction energy,
by-product removal, nucleation and other components of thin-film deposition
When the Department of Defense
(DoD) wants to build a jet engine, it doesn’t put a team of engineers in a hangar with a block of metal and some
chisels. Jet engines are made up of individual components that are carefully assembled into a finished product
that possesses the desired performance capabilities. In the case of thin-film deposition—a process in which
coatings with special properties are bonded to materials and parts to enhance performance—current science
addresses the process as though it is attempting to build a jet engine from a block of metal, focusing on the
whole and ignoring the parts. Like a jet engine, the thin-film deposition process could work better if it was
addressed at the component level.
Thin-film deposition requires high levels of energy to achieve the
individual chemical steps to deposit a coating on a substrate. Under the current state of practice, that necessary
energy is generated by applying very high temperatures—more than 900 degrees Celsius in some cases—at the surface
of the substrate as part of a chemical vapor deposition process. The problem with using the thermal energy hammer
is that the minimum required processing temperatures exceed the maximum temperatures that many substrates of
interest to DoD can withstand. As a result, a wide range of capabilities remain out of reach.
DARPA
created the Local Control of Materials Synthesis (LoCo) program to overcome the reliance on high thermal energy
input by addressing the process of thin-film deposition at the component level in areas such as reactant flux,
surface mobility, reaction energy, nucleation and by-product removal, among others. In so doing, LoCo will attempt
to create new, low-temperature deposition processes and a new range of coating-substrate pairings for use in DoD
technologies.
“What really matters in thin-film deposition is energy, not heat,” said Brian Holloway,
DARPA program manager. “If we break down the thin-film deposition process into components, we should be able to
achieve better results by looking at each piece individually and then merging those solutions into a new
low-temperature process. It’s going to be researchers in specialties like plasma chemistry, photophysics, surface
acoustic spectroscopy and solid-state physics who make it possible. DARPA seeks scientists who can contribute
pieces of the puzzle so that the LoCo team can put them together.”
Breakthroughs in thin-film deposition
could enhance performance and enable new capabilities across a range of DoD technologies, impacting areas as
diverse as artificial arteries, corrosion-resistant paint and steel combinations, erosion-resistant rotor blades,
photovoltaics and long-wavelength infrared missile domes, among others.
As a second focus area, the LoCo
program seeks performers to evaluate the cost and performance impacts of coating application to existing DoD parts
and systems. Through these assessments, DARPA hopes to identify a specific piece of equipment that would benefit
from a novel coating to use as a test bed for any new thin-film deposition process. Through this parallel effort,
LoCo intends to move from initial research to practical application within three years.
To answer
questions regarding the LoCo program, DARPA will hold a Proposers’ Day workshop on May 9, 2012. This live workshop
and simultaneous webcast will introduce interested communities to the effort, explain the mechanics of a DARPA
program and address questions about proposals, participation and eligibility. The meeting is in support of the
forthcoming Local Control of Materials Synthesis Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) that will formally solicit
proposals. More information on the Proposers’ Day is available at:
https://go.usa.gov/y6M.
The BAA will be announced on the Federal Business Opportunities website (www.fbo.gov).
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