Vera Yurasova

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Vera Yurasova (4 August 1928 - 11 January 2023) was a Russian physicist who contributed to the study of the interactions between ion beams and solid surfaces, both in their experimental characteristics and their physical mechanisms.

Contents

Life

Portrait of Vera Yurasova by Anatoliy Gorshkov, charcoal on canvas, 1952 Vera Yurasova by Anatoly Gorshkov1.jpg
Portrait of Vera Yurasova by Anatoliy Gorshkov, charcoal on canvas, 1952

Vera Yurasova was born in Moscow on 4 August 1928. Her father, Evgeniy Yurasov, was the Head of the Department of Radio Communication in Aviation in the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. Her husband, Anatoliy Gorshkov (1928–1997), was also a physicist and a Doctor of Science.

Vera Yurasova studied at the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University from 1946 to 1951. She did her diploma project – "Movement and focusing of particles in a trakhotron" – in the Institute of Automatic Telemechanics of Academy of Science of the USSR, under the supervision of Professor Dmitri Zyornov. After finishing her studies in 1951, she started work at Moscow University, at the department of electron optics, in the Faculty of Physics. [1]

In 1958, she completed her PhD on "Processes under cathodic sputtering of metal mono- and poly-crystals", under supervision of Professor Grigoriy Spivak. In 1975, she became a Doctor of Science for her work on "Emission of atomic particles under ion bombardment of single crystals".

In the early days of her research, she regularly discussed her scientific results with key scientists, who were at the time working at the Physics Faculty of Moscow University: Aleksey Shubnikov, Sergey Vekshinskiy, Lev Artsimovich. Along with Spivak, she counted these as her teachers. Later, she had close scientific links with the theorist Oleg Firsov, with whom she also worked in the Russian Academy of Sciences Council for Plasma Physics.

Vera Yurasova was one of the founders of the scientific school of research on the interactions of atomic particles with solids, and her work was well known both in Russia and abroad. Key areas of her scientific research included electronics, radiation physics of solids, diagnostics of surfaces with ion beams, and computer simulation of ion interactions with surfaces.

Teaching at Moscow University

Vera taught at Moscow University for many years. Here, she developed and taught courses on "Electron-optic equipment", "Interaction of ions with the surface". She headed the Soviet (and later Russian) seminar on fundamental and applied problems in the interaction of ions with surfaces, which was a special seminar for PhD students studying sputtering and ion emissions. She supervised 30 successful PhD students, eight of whom went on to become Doctors of Science.

Scientific work

Among the highlights of her work, Vera

Her scientific work was highly valued in scientific papers and books. See, for example, N.V. Pleshivdtsev "Cathodic Sputtering" (Atomizdat 1963) and R. Behrisch "Sputtering by Particle Bombardment,II" (Springer–Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1983).

Scientific Committees

She played an active role on a number of scientific councils in the Academy of Science and the Ministry of Higher Education, and in the organising and programme committees of many international conferences. [2] She was formerly a member of the International Bohmische Physical Society (from 1992), and the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications — IUVSTA (from 1992), and a member of the editorial board of the international journal “Vacuum” (Elsevier). [3]

Her hobbies included music, painting and photography.

Books

Papers

Author of over 450 scientific works. These include: [4]

Prizes

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electron</span> Elementary particle with negative charge

The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, ħ. Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavelength for a given energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sputtering</span> Emission of surface atoms through energetic particle bombardment

In physics, sputtering is a phenomenon in which microscopic particles of a solid material are ejected from its surface, after the material is itself bombarded by energetic particles of a plasma or gas. It occurs naturally in outer space, and can be an unwelcome source of wear in precision components. However, the fact that it can be made to act on extremely fine layers of material is utilised in science and industry—there, it is used to perform precise etching, carry out analytical techniques, and deposit thin film layers in the manufacture of optical coatings, semiconductor devices and nanotechnology products. It is a physical vapor deposition technique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surface science</span> Study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases

Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the fields of surface chemistry and surface physics. Some related practical applications are classed as surface engineering. The science encompasses concepts such as heterogeneous catalysis, semiconductor device fabrication, fuel cells, self-assembled monolayers, and adhesives. Surface science is closely related to interface and colloid science. Interfacial chemistry and physics are common subjects for both. The methods are different. In addition, interface and colloid science studies macroscopic phenomena that occur in heterogeneous systems due to peculiarities of interfaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secondary emission</span> When a particles interactions with a material cause it to emit new particles

In particle physics, secondary emission is a phenomenon where primary incident particles of sufficient energy, when hitting a surface or passing through some material, induce the emission of secondary particles. The term often refers to the emission of electrons when charged particles like electrons or ions in a vacuum tube strike a metal surface; these are called secondary electrons. In this case, the number of secondary electrons emitted per incident particle is called secondary emission yield. If the secondary particles are ions, the effect is termed secondary ion emission. Secondary electron emission is used in photomultiplier tubes and image intensifier tubes to amplify the small number of photoelectrons produced by photoemission, making the tube more sensitive. It also occurs as an undesirable side effect in electronic vacuum tubes when electrons from the cathode strike the anode, and can cause parasitic oscillation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secondary ion mass spectrometry</span> Surface chemical analysis and imaging method

Secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a technique used to analyze the composition of solid surfaces and thin films by sputtering the surface of the specimen with a focused primary ion beam and collecting and analyzing ejected secondary ions. The mass/charge ratios of these secondary ions are measured with a mass spectrometer to determine the elemental, isotopic, or molecular composition of the surface to a depth of 1 to 2 nm. Due to the large variation in ionization probabilities among elements sputtered from different materials, comparison against well-calibrated standards is necessary to achieve accurate quantitative results. SIMS is the most sensitive surface analysis technique, with elemental detection limits ranging from parts per million to parts per billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neutron generator</span> Source of neutrons from linear particle accelerators

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glow discharge</span>

A glow discharge is a plasma formed by the passage of electric current through a gas. It is often created by applying a voltage between two electrodes in a glass tube containing a low-pressure gas. When the voltage exceeds a value called the striking voltage, the gas ionization becomes self-sustaining, and the tube glows with a colored light. The color depends on the gas used.

A vacuum arc can arise when the surfaces of metal electrodes in contact with a good vacuum begin to emit electrons either through heating or in an electric field that is sufficient to cause field electron emission. Once initiated, a vacuum arc can persist, since the freed particles gain kinetic energy from the electric field, heating the metal surfaces through high-speed particle collisions. This process can create an incandescent cathode spot, which frees more particles, thereby sustaining the arc. At sufficiently high currents an incandescent anode spot may also be formed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion beam</span> Beam of charged atoms (ions)

An ion beam is a type of charged particle beam consisting of ions. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing and other industries. A variety of ion beam sources exists, some derived from the mercury vapor thrusters developed by NASA in the 1960s. The most common ion beams are of singly-charged ions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Focused ion beam</span> Device

Focused ion beam, also known as FIB, is a technique used particularly in the semiconductor industry, materials science and increasingly in the biological field for site-specific analysis, deposition, and ablation of materials. A FIB setup is a scientific instrument that resembles a scanning electron microscope (SEM). However, while the SEM uses a focused beam of electrons to image the sample in the chamber, a FIB setup uses a focused beam of ions instead. FIB can also be incorporated in a system with both electron and ion beam columns, allowing the same feature to be investigated using either of the beams. FIB should not be confused with using a beam of focused ions for direct write lithography. These are generally quite different systems where the material is modified by other mechanisms.

Plasma etching is a form of plasma processing used to fabricate integrated circuits. It involves a high-speed stream of glow discharge (plasma) of an appropriate gas mixture being shot at a sample. The plasma source, known as etch species, can be either charged (ions) or neutral. During the process, the plasma generates volatile etch products at room temperature from the chemical reactions between the elements of the material etched and the reactive species generated by the plasma. Eventually the atoms of the shot element embed themselves at or just below the surface of the target, thus modifying the physical properties of the target.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gurgen Askaryan</span> Soviet-Armenian physicist

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An ion pump is a type of vacuum pump which operates by sputtering a metal getter. Under ideal conditions, ion pumps are capable of reaching pressures as low as 10−11 mbar. An ion pump first ionizes gas within the vessel it is attached to and employs a strong electrical potential, typically 3–7 kV, which accelerates the ions into a solid electrode. Small bits of the electrode are sputtered into the chamber. Gasses are trapped by a combination of chemical reactions with the surface of the highly-reactive sputtered material, and being physically trapped underneath that material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sputter deposition</span> Method of thin film application

Sputter deposition is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) method of thin film deposition by the phenomenon of sputtering. This involves ejecting material from a "target" that is a source onto a "substrate" such as a silicon wafer. Resputtering is re-emission of the deposited material during the deposition process by ion or atom bombardment. Sputtered atoms ejected from the target have a wide energy distribution, typically up to tens of eV. The sputtered ions can ballistically fly from the target in straight lines and impact energetically on the substrates or vacuum chamber. Alternatively, at higher gas pressures, the ions collide with the gas atoms that act as a moderator and move diffusively, reaching the substrates or vacuum chamber wall and condensing after undergoing a random walk. The entire range from high-energy ballistic impact to low-energy thermalized motion is accessible by changing the background gas pressure. The sputtering gas is often an inert gas such as argon. For efficient momentum transfer, the atomic weight of the sputtering gas should be close to the atomic weight of the target, so for sputtering light elements neon is preferable, while for heavy elements krypton or xenon are used. Reactive gases can also be used to sputter compounds. The compound can be formed on the target surface, in-flight or on the substrate depending on the process parameters. The availability of many parameters that control sputter deposition make it a complex process, but also allow experts a large degree of control over the growth and microstructure of the film.

High-power impulse magnetron sputtering is a method for physical vapor deposition of thin films which is based on magnetron sputter deposition. HIPIMS utilises extremely high power densities of the order of kW⋅cm−2 in short pulses (impulses) of tens of microseconds at low duty cycle of < 10%. Distinguishing features of HIPIMS are a high degree of ionisation of the sputtered metal and a high rate of molecular gas dissociation which result in high density of deposited films. The ionization and dissociation degree increase according to the peak cathode power. The limit is determined by the transition of the discharge from glow to arc phase. The peak power and the duty cycle are selected so as to maintain an average cathode power similar to conventional sputtering (1–10 W⋅cm−2).

Static secondary-ion mass spectrometry, or static SIMS is a secondary ion mass spectrometry technique for chemical analysis including elemental composition and chemical structure of the uppermost atomic or molecular layer of a solid which may be a metal, semiconductor or plastic with insignificant disturbance to its composition and structure. It is one of the two principal modes of operation of SIMS, which is the mass spectrometry of ionized particles emitted by a solid surface upon bombardment by energetic primary particles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexey Andreevich Anselm</span> Russian theoretical physicist (1934–1998)

Alexey Andreevich Anselm was a Russian theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, director (1992–1994) of the B.P. Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), member of: the Russian and American Physical Society, the executive committee of the Nuclear Physics Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the editorial board of the Russian journal “Yadernaya Fizika”.

Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) is a group of computer programs which calculate interactions between ions and matter; the core of SRIM is a program called Transport of Ions in Matter (TRIM). SRIM is popular in the ion implantation research and technology community, and also used widely in other branches of radiation material science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion track</span>

Ion tracks are damage-trails created by swift heavy ions penetrating through solids, which may be sufficiently-contiguous for chemical etching in a variety of crystalline, glassy, and/or polymeric solids. They are associated with cylindrical damage-regions several nanometers in diameter and can be studied by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) or gas permeation.

Kirill Borisovich Tolpygo was a Soviet physicist and a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was recognized for his works on condensed matter theory; the theory of phonon spectra in crystals; electronic structure and defects in insulators and semiconductors; and biophysics. He created the Department of Theoretical Physics and the Department of Biophysics at Donetsk National University. Tolpygo was a teacher, mentor and scientific adviser to graduate students. Tolpygo was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War.

References

  1. Moscow University Physics Faculty Staff Page http://physelec.phys.msu.ru/staff/yurasova.html
  2. Vacuum, Special Issue on 10th All-Union Conference on the Interaction of Ions with Surfaces www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0042207X/44/9
  3. Vacuum editorial board http://www.journals.elsevier.com/vacuum/editorial-board/
  4. physelec.phys.msu.ru/staff/yurasova/publ.doc