Synthesis of functional materials using pulsed power technology

Intense, pulsed charged particle beams such as relativistic electron beam or light ion beam have been found to be very efficient in many applications not only in energy but also in materials science. In particular, pulsed ion beam such as proton beam is unique because the range is very short in target, producing very high energy density to produce very high-density ablation plasma. Using such a plasma has been found to prepare successfully various kinds of thin films, which was named pulsed ion beam evaporation (IBE). By rapid cooling of the plasma, furthermore, the synthesis of ultrafine nanosize powders has been successfully demonstrated by IBE. Metal build-in into via hole of LSI has been demonstrated successfully by IBE as well. In addition, the nanosize powders have been synthesized by pulsed wire discharge (PWD). Thus, the intense, pulsed ion beam has been found to be very useful and efficient for the applications in the materials science.