Jeffrey Elam

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Jeffrey Elam
Alma materCornell University (BA), University of Chicago (PhD)
Known forAtomic layer deposition
TitleDistinguished Fellow, Senior Chemist and Group Leader
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry, materials science, thin films
Institutions Argonne National Laboratory
Website www.anl.gov/profile/jeffrey-w-elam

Jeffrey Elam is a Distinguished Fellow, Senior Chemist and Group Leader [1] in the Applied Materials Division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. He leads Argonne's atomic layer deposition (ALD) research program, where he directs research and development and commercialization of thin film coating technologies for energy applications.

Contents

Elam is a fellow of the Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering, [2] and staff member at the Center for Molecular Engineering at Argonne. [3] He also manages the Functional Coatings Group in Argonne's Applied Materials Division [4] and is a principal investigator in the US-Israel Collaborative Water-Energy Research Center (CoWERC), and the Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems Center, [5] a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center.

Education

Elam graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, followed by the University of Chicago with a PhD in physical chemistry in the lab of Donald H. Levy. [6] Elam pursued postdoctoral studies with Steven M. George at the University of Colorado where he developed ALD thin film growth methods. [7] [8]

Research

Oleo Sponge

Elam co-invented (with Seth Darling) the Oleo Sponge, [9] a polyurethane foam engineered to absorb oil from water. Researchers engineered the material to be oleophilic and hydrophobic using sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS), [10] a patented-material synthesis method Elam co-invented that has been cited by multiple companies. [11] [12] [13] SIS was used to coat the interior surfaces of the foam with a thin layer of metal oxide “primer” that acts as a glue for attaching a monolayer of oleophilic molecules. The result is a reusable sponge capable of adsorbing up to 90 times its weight in oil. [14]

Large Area Microchannel Plates

Elam was part of the team that developed the world's largest microchannel plate (MCP), [15] a solid-state, 2-dimensional electron amplifier critical to a variety of imaging and sensing applications. This was achieved by using ALD nanocomposite coatings to create a manufacturing strategy for MCPs that drove down cost, improved performance, and widened applications. [16] The ALD coatings have been implemented by Incom, Inc. to manufacture large area MCPs [17] and are being incorporated into large area photodetectors. [18] The patent for fabricating the technology has been cited by more than a dozen companies, including Samsung, Nova Scientific and Nissan. [19]

Scale-up of Transparent Conducting Oxide Coatings

Elam led a team to create ALD methods for depositing ITO films, a common transparent conducting thin film found in devices such as solar cells, flat panel displays, and touch screens, onto nanoporous supports and over large substrate areas. One patented method, [20] which used two oxygen-sources “synergistically” [21] to allow materials to grow at lower-than-normal temperatures, proved [20] capable of coating nanoporous materials with high precision and uniformity.

Publications

Elam has authored over 300 papers on the subject of ALD, his work has been cited over 34,000 times. [22] His most cited study, published in 2003, demonstrated the low temperature growth of Al2O3 ALD films—which have the potential to coat thermally fragile substrates such as organic, polymeric, or biological materials—at temperatures as low as 33 °C. [23] His research group has amassed over 50 inventions in ALD coating technology and holds numerous patents. [24]

Honors

Elam is a fellow of the American Vacuum Society. In 2017, he received the ALD Innovation Award [25] from the AVS for original work and leadership in ALD. In 2019 he received a lifetime achievement award from Argonne. [26]

Notable patents

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seth Darling</span>

Seth B. Darling is the Chief Science & Technology Officer of the Advanced Energy Technologies Directorate at Argonne National Laboratory. He previously served as director of the Center for Molecular Engineering, a research and development organization partnered with the University of Chicago focusing on advanced materials for cleaning water, quantum information science, and polymer science. Darling is also a senior scientist at both the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. He also directs the Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems (AMEWS) Center, a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center formed in 2018.

Derived from atomic layer deposition (ALD), sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS) is a technique in which a polymer is infused with inorganic material using sequential, self-limiting exposures to gaseous precursors, allowing for the precise control over the composition, structure and properties of materials. This synthesis involves metal-organic vapor-phase precursors and co-reactants dissolving and diffusing into polymers, interacting with the polymer functional groups via reversible complex formation and/or irreversible chemical reactions yielding desired composite materials, which may be nanostructured. The metal-organic precursor (A) and co-react vapor (B) are supplied in an alternating ABAB sequence. Following SIS, the organic phase can be removed thermally or chemically to leave only the inorganic components behind. The precise control over the infiltration and synthesis via SIS allows the creation of materials with tailored properties like composition, mechanics, stoichiometry, porosity, conductivity, refractive index, and chemical functionality on the nanoscale. This empowers SIS to have a wide range of applications from electronics to energy storage to catalysis. SIS is sometimes referred to as "multiple pulsed vapor-phase infiltration" (MPI), "vapor phase infiltration" (VPI)” or "sequential vapor infiltration" (SVI)".

References

  1. ↑ "Jeffrey W. Elam | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  2. ↑ "Members – NAISE Institute". www.naise.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  3. ↑ "Staff Directory | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  4. ↑ "Functional Coatings | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  5. ↑ "Advanced Materials for Energy-Water Systems Center | Our Team | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  6. ↑ "Jeffrey W. Elam | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  7. ↑ "Jeffrey W. Elam". www.aiche.org. 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  8. ↑ "UAH College of Engineering welcomes Dr. Jeffrey W. Elam of Argonne National Laboratory". The University of Alabama in Huntsville. 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  9. ↑ "Argonne invents reusable sponge that soaks up oil, could revolutionize oil spill and diesel cleanup | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. 6 March 2017. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  10. ↑ Elam, J. W.; Biswas, M.; Darling, S.; Yanguas-Gil, A.; Emery, J. D.; Martinson, A. B. F.; Nealey, P. F.; Segal-Peretz, T.; Peng, Q.; Winterstein, J.; Liddle, J. A. (2015-10-02). "New Insights into Sequential Infiltration Synthesis". ECS Transactions. 69 (7): 147–157. Bibcode:2015ECSTr..69g.147E. doi:10.1149/06907.0147ecst. ISSN   1938-6737. PMC   5424714 . PMID   28503252.
  11. ↑ "The promise of deep grooves | Argonne National Laboratory". www.anl.gov. October 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  12. 1 2 US 9786511,Darling, Seth B.; Elam, Jeffrey W.& Tseng, Yu-Chihet al.,"Sequential infiltration synthesis for advanced lithography",published 2017-10-10, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  13. ↑ "New Vapor Deposition Method Lets Engineers Build Untraditional Materials". Machine Design. 2018-10-12. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  14. ↑ "Oleo Sponge Could Make Oil Spill Cleanup More Efficient". The Wall Street Journal. March 16, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  15. ↑ Mane, Anil U.; Peng, Qing; Elam, Jeffrey W.; Bennis, Daniel C.; Craven, Christopher A.; Detarando, Michael A.; Escolas, John R.; Frisch, Henry J.; Jokela, Slade J.; McPhate, Jason; Minot, Michael J. (2012-01-01). "An Atomic Layer Deposition Method to Fabricate Economical and Robust Large Area Microchannel Plates for Photodetectors". Physics Procedia. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics (TIPP 2011). 37: 722–732. Bibcode:2012PhPro..37..722M. doi: 10.1016/j.phpro.2012.03.720 . ISSN   1875-3892.
  16. ↑ "Nanocomposite Coatings with Tunable Properties Prepared by Atomic Layer Deposition". Sigma-Aldrich. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  17. ↑ "MCP / Microchannel Plate / Photon and Electron Amplification". Incom. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  18. ↑ Adams, Bernhard W.; Attenkofer, Klaus; Bogdan, Mircea; Byrum, Karen; Elagin, Andrey; Elam, Jeffrey W.; Frisch, Henry J.; Genat, Jean-Francois; Grabas, Herve; Gregar, Joseph; Hahn, Elaine (2016-03-06). "A Brief Technical History of the Large-Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) Collaboration". arXiv: 1603.01843 [physics.ins-det].
  19. ↑ US 8969823,Elam, Jeffrey W.; Mane, Anil U.& Peng, Qing,"Microchannel plate detector and methods for their fabrication",published 2015-03-03, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  20. 1 2 US 10131991,Elam, Jeffrey W.&Libera, Joseph A.,"Method for depositing transparent conducting oxides",published 2018-11-20, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  21. ↑ Libera, Joseph A.; Hryn, John N.; Elam, Jeffrey W. (2011-04-26). "Indium Oxide Atomic Layer Deposition Facilitated by the Synergy between Oxygen and Water". Chemistry of Materials. 23 (8): 2150–2158. doi:10.1021/cm103637t. ISSN   0897-4756.
  22. ↑ "Jeffrey Elam - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
  23. ↑ Groner, M. D.; Fabreguette, F. H.; Elam, J. W.; George, S. M. (2004-02-01). "Low-Temperature Al2O3 Atomic Layer Deposition". Chemistry of Materials. 16 (4): 639–645. doi:10.1021/cm0304546. ISSN   0897-4756.
  24. ↑ "Jeffrey W. Elam Inventions, Patents and Patent Applications - Justia Patents Search". patents.justia.com. Retrieved 2020-02-02.
  25. ↑ "Awards". ald2018.avs.org. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  26. ↑ "Congratulations to winners of 2019 Argonne Commercialization Excellence Awards". Argonne Today. May 21, 2019. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  27. ↑ US 10177365,Mane, Anil U.; Elam, Jeffrey W.& Park, Joong Sunet al.,"Metal fluoride passivation coatings prepared by atomic layer deposition for Li-ion batteries",published 2019-01-08, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  28. ↑ US 8980418,Darling, Seth B.; Elam, Jeffrey W.& Tseng, Yu-Chihet al.,"Sequential infiltration synthesis for advanced lithography",published 2015-03-17, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  29. ↑ US 8921799,Elam, Jeffrey W.&Mane, Anil U.,"Tunable resistance coatings",published 2014-12-30, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  30. ↑ US 8951615,Elam, Jeffrey W.&Yanguas-Gil, Angel,"Doping control by ALD surface functionalization",published 2015-02-10, assigned to UChicago Argonne LLC
  31. ↑ US 8969823,Elam, Jeffrey W.; Mane, Anil U.& Peng, Qing,"Microchannel plate detector and methods for their fabrication",published 2015-03-03
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