Stabilising Silver - mixing and matching

In this project, the student will fabricate and analyse thin silver and silver/aluminum layers (@ DTU Nanolab). Why? Silver (Ag) has, on paper, extremely good optical properties. But, exactly as a silver spoon, it oxidizes very fast thus making its properties useless. However, mixing it with aluminum (Al) seems to increase the layer’s stability without affecting its optical performance. The students will deposit Ag and Ag/Al layers and analyse its properties and their variation in time. They will be trained and use various equipment: sputtering, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM).

Forudsætninger

Basic knowledge of optics and optical material properties