Professor Sandy Fitzgerald

Sandy Fitzgerald retired from the Electronic Engineering and Physics Division in 2005 and now works in an emeritus capacity. Before returning to Dundee, where he was student at Queens College, he worked as a research assistant in the Physics and Chemistry of Solids sub-group of the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. He was also a research fellow at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. His early research work was in the field of transmission electron microscopy where he explained the origin of the fine structure in electron diffraction patterns from crystal defects. He was also among the first to study the growth of compound semiconductor crystals and also use a moiré fringe technique to analyse crystal defects.

On returning to Dundee he founded the Analytical Electron Microscopy and Surface Analysis Research Group. His early work in the University of Dundee centred round the growth and analytical studies of ferrimagnetic thin films.

In the 1980s he was a founder member of the UK Diamond Films Research Group and he made a number of early studies of diamond films using microbeam analytical techniques. He has also studied a number of other carbon forms including diamondlike carbon films and carbyne crystals.

With his research students, in the late 1980s he developed the first suite of programs for the rapid quantification of surface composition by Auger electron spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry based on the physical principles of emission of these radiations from a solid surface.

A current research interest is study of contact reactions between metals, particularly silver, and amorphous chalcogenide films, the superionic materials that form on the surface of these bilayers and the patterning effects than can be produced in these materials with an electron beam.

• DSc Physics, University of Dundee, Department of Electronic Engineering and Physics. "A Microbeam Analysis Study of Semiconductors and Magnetic Oxides"
• PhD Physics, University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory "The Physical Properties of Solids at High Pressures and Temperatures"
• BSc (Hons) Physics, University of St Andrews (Queens College, Dundee), Department of Physics

• Electron Spectroscopy
• Electron Microscopy
• X-ray Microanalysis
• Amorphous Chalcogenide Films
• Electron Beam Effects in Solids
• Ferrimagnetic Thin Films

• 2005 Characterisation of Heat- and Photo-Treated GexSb40-xS60 Films by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, J. Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials, Vol.7 No.1 February (2005) pp. 353 - 356. R.K. Debnath, A.G. Fitzgerald, K. Christova, A. Manov.
• 2005 Test method for measuring non-visible set-off from inks and laquers on the food-contact surface of printed packaging materials, Food Additives and Contaminants, Vol. 22, No. 5, 490-502 (13) May (2005). E.L. Bradley, L. Castle, T.J. Dines, A.G. Fitzgerald, P. Gonzalez Tunon, S.M. Jickells, S.M. Johns, E.S. Layfield, K.A. Mountford, H. Onoh, I.A. Ramsay
• 2005 Electron Beam Induced Chemical Modification of Amorphous Chalcogenide-Metal Bilayers and its Application, Applied Surface Science, Vol. 243 (1-4), pp. 228-231, (2005). R.K. Debnath, N. Nusbar, A.G. Fitzgerald
• 2005 Electron Beam Induced Surface Modification of Amorphous Sb2S3 Chalcogenide Films, Applied Surface Science, Vol. 243 (1-4), pp. 148-150, (2005). R.K. Debnath and A.G. Fitzgerald.
• 2006 Electron Beam Fabrication of Masks in Amorphous Metal-Chalcogenide Bilayers, Proceedings of EMAG-NANO 05, Analysis and Fabrication on the Nanoscale, Journal of Physics: Conference Series Vol. 26 211-214, (2006). R.K. Debnath, A.G. Fitzgerald and N. Nusbar.
• 2007 Preparation of micro- and nanocrystalline CdSe and CdS thin films suitable for sensor applications, J. Optoelectronics and Adv. Materials Vol. 8, No.6, 2120-2125, Dec (2007). D. Nesheva, Z. Aneva, S. Reynolds, C. Main and A.G. Fitzgerald.

Professor Sandy Fitzgerald

Division of Electronic Engineering and Physics

University of Dundee

Nethergate

Dundee

DD1 4HN