Gopi Krishna Samudrala

Research Associate, Department of Physics

I am fascinated with diamond and the extraordinary tools that can be built using its many excellent material properties. I have experience in synthesizing single, poly crystalline, and nano-structured diamond by microwave plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition. I have done extensive work on homoepitaxial and heteroepitaxial diamond growth on substrates of varying geometries.


I am always open to collaboration and if you are looking for somebody with experience on synthesizing diamond by CVD, please see my contact information below.

My Research and its Applications

I am actively working in the area of fabricating diamond based sensors. I use techniques such as lithography, sputter deposition, wet etching, lift-off process, chemical vapor deposition for the purpose of creating sensors based on diamond. These sensors range from designer diamond anvils used in high pressure research to a temperature measurement device that is currently in development. The motivation here is to exploit the extraordinary material properties of diamond and fabricate sensors that can function in extreme environs. I also study the structural, electric, magnetic rare earth metals under extreme condtions.

Read More On My Research

(a) Typical diamond anvil cell setup utilized in high pressure powder diffraction studies. (b) & (c) are examples of high quality raw image plate powder diffraction data obtained at synchrotron facilities. Here they show diffraction patterns of dysprosium under compression at 1.5 GPa and 210 GPa respectively. On the right hand side is a fully fabricated designer diamond anvil. The fabrication steps are—lithography, metallization, chemical vapor deposition, and polishing. The electrical probes are encapsulated under diamond film to prevent damage during high pressure experiments.

Designer Diamond Anvil

Diamond Microfabrication Facility

Prof. Yogesh Vohra's Diamond Microfabrication Laboratory is shown below. Established with the help of NSF: PFI-BIC grant, support from UAB; this facility is where we fabricate diamond based sensors. Designer Diamond Anvils are fabricated here utilizing maskless lithography and sputtering systems. The red light in the room is to preserve the photosensitive chemicals while we are working with them.

Read More On This Technology
Fabrication Lab

What Else Can Be Done With This Technology?

The simplicity, elegence of maskless lithography is that it allows us to work with non-planar substrates very easily. We have combined this technology with the other capabilities present in our lab - such as sputter deposition, CVD systems - to create a fully functioning microfabrication facility where we can, and have, worked with substrates such as silicon, Ti-Al-V alloys. Please contact me to see how we can help you in your research.

Fabrication Lab
Nanodiamond
I have done extensive work on growth of nano structured diamond on various substrates. I have researched into the growth of nano structured diamond on titanium based alloy TiAl6V4 as well as on silicon. As a result of my work, a very high growth rate of up to 5 microns/hr has been achieved on these substrates. Shown here is nanodiamond growth on silicon.
Boron doped diamond
My research on single crystal diamond growth also includes study of doping diamond with boron. An application of boron doped diamond is that these conducting diamond films can be used as resistive heaters by tuning the conductivity of boron doped diamond to the desired level. Data obtained from the electrical heating studies performed with boron-doped designer diamond anvil. The upper panel shows the measured temperature of culet by a thermocouple as a function of time. The bottom panel shows the corresponding electrical current variation that was sent through two of the tungsten probes used for heating.

The fascinating structural transitions that manifest in rare earths under pressure have been studied extensively. A summary of my works in this field as well as several other important works can be found in Gopi K. Samudrala and Yogesh K. Vohra, Structural Properties of Lanthanides at Ultra High Pressure, Chapter 257, Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths, Vol. 43 Volume 43, 2013, Pages 275–319. A complete list of my publications is available below which showcase the work I have done on rare-earth elements by studying their structural, magnetic behavior under high pressure.

Publications


Peer reviewed journals


Peer reviewed conference proceedings


Book chapter