Fabrication • Materials • Measurement • Process Development
Experimental physics connects physical ideas to real materials and devices. Thin-film growth, nanofabrication, and characterization form an interconnected workflow: materials are created, patterned into structures, measured, and then refined based on experimental feedback.
Experimental Workflow
Experimental condensed matter physics and device research rarely rely on a single technique.
A material may first be grown as a thin film, structurally characterized, patterned through lithography, etched or metallized, and finally measured electrically, magnetically, optically, or at low temperature.
Each step provides information that influences the next one. This feedback loop is central to both scientific research and process engineering.
Core Areas
Thin-film techniques allow materials to be grown or deposited with controlled thickness, composition, interfaces, and structure.
These methods are essential for superconducting films, semiconductor devices, dielectric layers, contacts, and multilayer structures.
Nanofabrication transforms materials into devices by combining lithography, etching, deposition, pattern transfer, and metallization.
These processes define the geometry, interfaces, and dimensions that ultimately determine device behavior.
Characterization provides the feedback needed to understand whether a material or fabrication step produced the intended result.
Structural, surface, electrical, magnetic, and low-temperature measurements reveal different aspects of material and device behavior.
Individual fabrication steps only become useful when they work together as a complete process flow.
Process integration involves balancing material compatibility, lithography limits, etch selectivity, thermal budgets, interfaces, alignment, reproducibility, and device performance.
Process Flow
Create the starting material through epitaxial growth, deposition, or multilayer processing.
Pattern the material using lithography, etching, deposition, metallization, and integration steps.
Characterize structure, morphology, transport, magnetic response, or device performance.
Experimental Feedback
Characterization is not simply something performed after fabrication is complete.
Measurements guide process decisions throughout development. XRD may determine whether a film is suitable for fabrication. SEM can reveal pattern-transfer failure. AFM can identify surface roughness. Electrical measurements can show leakage, contact resistance, or incomplete isolation.
The process then returns to fabrication with new information.
My Experience
Research and process development
My experimental background spans thin-film growth, nanofabrication, structural and surface characterization, and electrical transport measurements.
During my academic research, I worked with superconducting thin films and nanoscale devices, combining materials growth, lithography, ion milling, structural characterization, and low-temperature transport.
In semiconductor process development, I worked across multi-step fabrication flows involving lithography, plasma etching, dielectric deposition, metallization, thermal processing, metrology, and device integration.
Explore
Bragg diffraction, reciprocal space, Ewald construction, thin-film XRD, and diffraction analysis.
Deposition methods, growth concepts, materials processing, and multilayer structures.
Lithography, pattern transfer, plasma etching, process integration, and practical fabrication lessons.
Structural, surface, electrical, magnetic, and device characterization methods.
Experimental Physics
Experimental techniques are most powerful when they are not treated as isolated tools. Growth, fabrication, characterization, and analysis continuously inform one another, turning materials into devices and measurements into better processes.