Molecular beam epitaxy facility to design custom materials for scientists

The instrument used for molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) looks a little like the lunar module, with spindly metal legs feeding into a large cylindrical canister. But this device isn't headed for the moon-it delves into molecules instead, helping scientists craft new materials layer by layer with nearly atomic precision.

The MBE facility, located at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, could provide the basis for new materials to improve fuel cells, electronics and batteries.

"This is the dawn of a new era of materials discovery and synthesis," said Anand Bhattacharya, an Argonne physicist who designed the instrument. "In the right hands, it can really change materials science. In principle, the materials we might be able to make are limited only by our imagination." 

Based at Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials, the instrument recently became available to scientists around the world who submit proposals for time on the machine. Tiffany Santos, an Argonne scientist who heads the user science activities, says the dozen studies in progress so far have examined everything from catalysis to superconductivity.

For example, Santos and colleagues are working to create materials whose magnetic properties can be controlled with an electric field. Today's computers and other digital devices store data on hard disk drives and memory cards, components of which need to be controlled with a magnetic field. "That's slow and also wastes energy," Santos said. "When a computer is off, it needs a long bootup time when you turn it back on because its capacitors need to be charged up to restore memory."

The ultimate goal is to perfect a system of nonvolatile memory; that is, a system where the data remain stored even while the device is turned off. "We could do this by using an electrical field to control the magnets," Santos explained, "which is more local than a magnetic field, and it would also allow us to make devices smaller and more efficient.