Science | Michael Drakopoulos

Michael Drakopoulos
JEEP: Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing

Michael Drakopoulos

Michael Drakopoulos is the Principal Beamline Scientist of the Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing Beamline (JEEP), I12. Prior to joining I12, he was Beamline Scientist for the Extreme Conditions Beamline I15. Before joining Diamond, Michael was a Beamline Scientist at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, where he undertook research in the fields of micro-diffraction and micro-spectroscopy.

Email: Michael Drakopoulos
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 778157
Beamline I12: JEEP

Key Research Areas

Beamline optics, particular x-ray lenses. Materials. X-ray standing wave technique with microscopic resolution. Development of new optical schemes for high-brilliance synchrotron radiation sources.

Current Research Interests

Many new material systems are compound materials. They are heterogeneous on the micron and nanometre scale. Most of them are manufactured for scientific and industrial applications in the field of microelectronics and semiconductor physics. One of their important characteristics is the crystalline quality, which concerns the major constituents as well as the trace elements that are introduced to tailor the electronic or optical properties. The characterisation of such crystalline materials on the microscopic scales can favourably be accomplished by the X-ray standing wave technique, provided that the illuminated volume is small enough to spatially resolve the different material units. Focusing x-ray beams to sizes below 1 µm is possible with highly developed x-ray optical elements. Many of this optics work on the optical principle of image formation and thus are particularly well suited for 3rd generation synchrotron machines, such as Diamond.

I have recently demonstrated that microscopic analysis of crystalline quality is possible by means of high-resolution diffraction and x-ray standing waves.

The development of such new techniques has resulted in new optical schemes that surpass traditional experimental set-ups by taking into account the effect of the high brilliance of modern synchrotrons.

Selected Publications

  1. "X-ray standing wave microscopy: Chemical microanalysis with atomic resolution", M. Drakopoulos, J. Zegenhagen, A. Snigirev, I. Snigireva, M. Hauser, K. Eberl, V. Aristov, L. Shabelnikov, V. Yunkin, ", Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 2279 (2002).
  2. "GaN Polarity Domains Spatially Resolved by X-ray Standing Wave Microscopy", M. Drakopoulos, J. Zegenhagen, T.-L. Lee, A. Snigirev, I. Snigireva, V. Cimalla, O. Ambacher, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36, A214 (2003).
  3. "X-ray high-resolution diffraction using refractive lenses", Drakopoulos, A. Snigirev, I. Snigireva, J. Schilling, Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 014102 (2005).
  4. "Scaling in the Time Domain: Universal Dynamics of Order Fluctuations in Fe3Al", C. Mocuta, H. Reichert, K. Mecke, H. Dosch, M. Drakopoulos, Science 308, 1287 (2005).
  5. "Structural evaluation of GaN/sapphire grown by epitaxial lateral overgrowth by X-ray microdiffraction", M. Drakopoulos, M. Laügt, T. Riemann, B. Beaumont, P. Gibart, physica status solidi (b) 243, 1545 (2006).