COMBINATORIAL MATERIALS SYNTHESIS AND SCREENING: An Integrated Materials Chip Approach to Discovery and Optimization of Functional Materials

Combinatorial materials synthesis methods and high throughput evaluation techniques have been developed to accelerate the process of materials discovery and optimization. Analogous to integrated circuit chips, integrated materials chips containing thousands, possibly millions, of different compounds/materials, often in the form of high-quality epitaxial thin film can be fabricated and screened for interesting physical or chemical properties. Microspot X-ray methods, various optical measurement techniques, and a novel evanescent microwave microscope have been used to characterize the structural, optical, magnetic, and electrical properties of samples on materials chips. These techniques are routinely used to discover and optimize luminescent, ferroelectric, dielectric, and magnetic materials.