Sandia National Labs Academic Programs Collaboration Report

Novel approach to producing thin films

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Sandia postdoctoral appointee Robynne Paldi, jumpstarted her research at Sandia through the Labs’ Diversity Initiative. While in the program, she helped develop a fabrication method for epitaxial lithium niobate thin film, useful in SAW devices and radio frequency sensors. This work resulted in a patent, which was developed through a Purdue and Sandia collaboration. “As a postdoc at Sandia, I hope to develop the capability of vertically-aligned nanocomposites and see it used in national security applications,” said Paldi.

High quality thin films are an attractive material for electronics and other devices due to their flexibility and other properties that manufacturers find valuable, but they can be difficult to grow and produce. Haiyan Wang, the Basil S. Tuner Professor of Engineering in Purdue’s College of Engineering, developed a new approach to creating these thin films and was supported through an LDRD at Sandia led by Aleem Siddiqui, an expert in micro-electromechancial systems or MEMS, a miniature machine with both mechanical and electronic components. The team’s approach was to create a single-layer film through a nanocomposite-seeded approach . The optimized and grown lithium niobate (LNO) thin films were further developed for the purpose of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices that transduce electrical energy to mechanical energy. Sandia postdoctoral appointee Robynne Paldi, who obtained her PhD at Purdue, helped lead the research. She said, “Our films are grown through a pulsed laser deposition method and growth conditions are optimized to achieve high-quality films that can be easily integrated into devices.” The technological approach for these single-layer LNO thin films was ultimately patented .

A new approach to creating popular thin films used for devices was created at Purdue and supported by a Sandia LDRD project.

This image shows work

on a sample of that innovation

while it was heating up.

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report