Drexel University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering has received two Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) awards from the Army Research Office (ARO).

Dr. Jonathan Spanier (PI), Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, is the recipient of a $160,000 DURIP titled, “Acquisition of an Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) System,” that will support his research on developing multi-component semiconducting and functional oxide nanostructured materials and devices. Distinguished by its self-limiting reaction chemistry, ALD is an increasingly important and versatile vapor-phase, deposition process route for producing a variety of inorganic elemental and compound thin-films with monolayer control.

Dr. Michel Barsoum (PI), Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and, Dr. Peter Finkel (Co-PI), Director of Microfabrication Facilities in the Drexel Nanotechnology Institute and Research Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, are the recipients of a $90,000 DURIP titled, “Acquisition of Equipment to Study Linear and Nonlinear Acoustic Phenomena,” to acquire a specialized complex ultrasonic system for the study of linear and nonlinear acoustic phenomena in solids. This equipment is capable of simultaneously measuring the attenuation of sound and its velocity in solids, acoustic emission (AE) from the samples under load, and determining the elastic constants by measuring acoustic resonances using a Resonant Ultrasonic Spectroscopy (RUS).