Deposits and Analysis under Ultra-high vacuum of nanoMaterials Competence Center (CC D.A.U.M.)

The 28 chambers connected to the ultra-high vacuum transfer tunnel of D.A.U.M. platform allow development and in situ analysis of innovative materials, combining the properties of elementary materials, in order to improve the performance of the final object.

The combination of different materials (metals, semiconductors, oxides, nitrides, organic materials, alloys) to manufacture new devices is made possible thanks to the availability of different thin-films elaboration techniques, interconnected under ultra-high vacuum:

Equipment for developing thin layers:

• 1 Evaporation
• 6 Sputtering
• 6 Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)
• 1 Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD)
• 1 Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD)

At each stage of their growth, these hybrid materials can be studied and characterized, while staying under ultra-high vacuum, by using different surface analysis techniques:

Equipment for surface analysis:

• Chemical: Spectroscopies (XPS, Auger, ARPES)
• Physical: Magneto-optical Kerr effect; Spectroscopies; Photo- and Cathodo-luminescence
• Structural: Electron diffraction (RHEED, LEED); Microscopies (STM, AFM, SEM)

The research topics currently developed on the platform cover the following areas:

• Materials for spintronic: ferromagnetic, magnetic oxides, strong spin orbit coupling, topological effect, etc.
• Nanomaterials for optoelectronics, photovoltaics, etc.
• 2D materials: molecular, ultra-thin oxides, etc.
• Complex alloys and quasi crystals
• Functional materials: ternary oxides, Heusler alloys, etc.

Some significant publications involving CC D.A.U.M. members:

        2025

• Silver doped Cantor alloy thin films with tweed-like microstructure

  Salah-Eddine Benrazzouq (1) , Abdelkrim Redjaïmia (1) , Jaâfar Ghanbaja (1) , Jean-Sébastien Lecomte (2) , Sylvie Migot (1) , Valentin A Milichko (1) , Jean-François Pierson (1) Scripta Materialia, 2025, 258, pp.116521
    

  2024                                        

• Controlling the helicity of light by electrical magnetization switching

  Pambiang Abel Dainone (1) , Nicholas Figueiredo Prestes (2) , Pierre Renucci (3) , Alexandre Bouché (1) , Martina Morassi (4) , Xavier Devaux (1) , Markus Lindemann (5) , Jean-Marie George (2) , Henri Jaffrès (2) , Aristide Lemaitre (4) , Bo Xu (6) , Mathieu Stoffel (1) , Tongxin Chen (1) , L. Lombez (3) , Delphine Lagarde (3) , Guangwei Cong (7) , Tianyi Ma (8) , Philippe Pigeat (1) , Michel Vergnat (1) , Hervé Rinnert (1) , Xavier Marie (3) , Xiufeng Han (8) , Stephane Mangin (1) , Juan-Carlos Rojas-Sánchez (1) , Jian-Ping Wang (9) , Matthew C Beard (10) , Nils C Gerhardt (5) , Igor Žutić (11) , Yuan Lu (1) Nature, 2024, 627 (8005), pp.783-788
   

  2023

• Testing the topological insulator behavior of half-Heusler PdYBi and PtYBi (111) epitaxial thin films

  Victor Palin (1, 2) , Alberto Anadón (1) , Stéphane Andrieu (1) , Yannick Fagot-Revurat (1) , Claudia de Melo (1) , Jaâfar Ghanbaja (1) , Oleg Kurnosikov (1) , Sébastien Petit-Watelot (1) , François Bertran (2) , Juan-Carlos Rojas Sánchez (1) Physical Review Materials, 2023, 7 (10), pp.104203

• Bringing ultimate depth to scanning tunnelling microscopy: deep subsurface vision of buried nano-objects in metals

  Oleg Kurnosikov (1) , Muriel Sicot (1) , Emilie Gaudry (1) , Danielle Pierre (1) , Yuan Lu (1) , Stéphane Mangin (1) Nanoscale Horizons, 2023, 8 (7), pp.900-911

D.A.U.M. puts its technical and scientific skills at your disposal and offers you:

• tailor-made training in thin films deposition and characterization under vacuum conditions
• research collaborations
• engineering solutions to your industrial R&D issues

Technical staff

• Alexandre BOUCHE
• Maoxiang ZHU
• Ludovic PASQUIER
• Danielle PIERRE
• David PILLOUD

Contract researcher

• Oleg KURNOSIKOV