Hossein advances to candidacy

This has been a busy semester of thesis and thesis proposal defenses in our group. Most recently, Hossein Salami defended his PhD thesis proposal A mechanistic framework for reaction network analysis of atomic layer deposition processes with application to titania thin-film manufacturing. While shown here working on our new, NASA-sponsored ALD reactor system, Hossein’s work primarily focuses on the theoretical and computational aspects of using invariants (the linear combinations of deposition reaction species that are constant with respect to time) of reaction networks (RN) to determine whether a well-posed and “proper” simulation can be created using that RN. This approach is crucial to the successful formulation of ALD and CVD simulators that incorporate reaction mechanisms and kinetics data from studies that typically focus only on one fragment of the overall deposition process. More information can be found in the two papers Hossein has authored. This research is sponsored by the CBET division of the National Science Foundation.