Thin Films

Photonic Thin Films

Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian. The thin film labs include a number of thin film deposition facilities including sputtering, ion beam assisted sputtering, electron beam sputtering, electron beam deposition and thermal deposition facilities. Thin film measurement capabilities including a prism coupler and an ellipsometer for index of refraction measurements at various wavelengths, a spectrophotometer for transmission and absorption measurement, and a DSC system for glass transition temperature and weight loss measurement.   This research is partially supported by TRIF, Arizona’s Technology & Research Initiative Funding enterprise:  http://www.optics.arizona.edu/TRIF.

Surface Science Facility

Dr. Charles Falco. The primary focus of research in this facility involves various aspects of the growth and study of metallic and semiconductor multilayer thin films and epitaxial ultra-thin films. Topics of recent interest include studies of nucleation and epitaxy, magnetic and magneto-optical properties and devices, x-ray optics, far-infra-red, superconductive, and mechanical properties of these materials. An extensive range of facilities supports this research. Equipment for deposition includes three molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) machines, two multi-target dc/rf sputtering machines, one large-target rf sputtering machine, and an electron-beam evaporation. Characterization equipment: in situ: ion mill Auger, XPS, ISS, AFM/STM, LEED, and RHEED; ex situ: TEM, SEM, EDAX, STM, and high and low angle rotating-anode XRD. Equipment for the measurement of physical properties: in situ and ex situ: Brillouin light scattering, SMOKE, electrical and magnetic properties to temperatures as low as 0.3 K and in magnetic fields as high as 60 kGauss.

Optics and Art

The Revolutionary Falco/Hockney Thesis

The Optical Sciences's Professor Charles Falco has teamed up with world-famous artist David Hockney and together they have sparked an art-world controversy about the possibility that fifteenth century Master Painters in the High Tradition may have used lenses, mirrors, cameras obscura and cameras lucida for mechanical assistance in outlining subjects directly onto paper or canvas. Their startling new theory has received international coverage and continues to be hotly debated among art and science historians, curators, critics, physicists and artists.
According to Falco and Hockney, details in a number of paintings support their theory, including "Husband and Wife" by Lotto, "The Ambassadors" by Holbein, and both "Portrait of Arnolfini and His Wife" and "Portrait of Cardinal Niccolo Albergati" by van Eyck.