Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Blakely has a long standing reputation in the field of materials science and condensed matter physics with emphasis on surface and interface science. He has contributed to studies of a wide variety of types of material including metals, ceramics, and inorganic and organic semiconductors. The focus of the research in his group is the relationship between the properties of solid surfaces and their structure and composition. He pioneered the use of patterning techniques in the study of surface mass transport at surfaces due to atomic diffusion. Other principal areas of research have included the kinetics of solid-liquid phase transitions, the thermodynamics and kinetics of self assembled monolayer structures due to adsorption or segregation, the energetics and dynamics of atomic steps on surfaces, the role of surface charged layers in photographic and other ionic materials, adsorbed phases and the oxidation process on alloy surfaces, the structure and composition of glass surfaces. Experimental techniques of his group have included electron diffraction and spectroscopies, glancing incidence synchrotron X-ray methods, nanofabrication methods and scanning probe microscopy.

He is the author/contributing editor of four books on Properties of Solid Surfaces, Segregation at Interfaces, and Surface Physics. He has taught a broad range of undergraduate courses and currently offers graduate courses on Statistical Thermodynamics of Materials, Surfaces and Interfaces and on Structure of Materials.

Current research is focused mainly on the surface properties of semiconductors with emphasis on the control of morphology at the atomic level. The work is closely related to the improvement of reliable gate oxide –semiconductor interfaces in transistor structures. Developing atomically controlled substrates for improving the epitaxy or texture of deposited inorganic and organic thin film device material is a feature of the group’s interactive work.

1. "Formation and Stability of Large Step-free Areas on Si(001) and Si(111)”, Doohan Lee and Jack Blakely, Surface Science,445,32,(2000).
2. "Surface and Interfacial Morphology of Oxides on Si(111) with Ultra-Low Atomic Step Density", Antonio Oliver and Jack Blakely, JVST B, 18, 2862, (2000)
3. "A Growth Method for Creating Arrays of Atomically Flat Mesas on Silicon", Doohan Lee, Jack Blakely, Todd W. Schroeder and J. R. Engstrom, Applied Physics Letters, 78,1349, (2001).
4. "Nanoscale morphologies resulting from surface treatments of display glass in vacuum", Christopher C. Umbach and Jack M. Blakely, J. Noncrystalline Solids, 349, 267-275, (2004)
5.  "Pentacene Thin Film Growth" , Ricardo Ruiz, Devashish Choudary, Bert Nickel, Tullio Toccoli, Kee-Chul Chang, Alex C. Mayer, Paulette Clancey, Jack M Blakely, Randall Headrick, Salvatore Iannotta, George C. Malliaras Chemistry of Materials, 16, 4497, (2004)
6. "Arrays of widely spaced atomic steps on Si(111) mesas due to sublimation", Kee-Chul Chang, Jack M. Blakely, Surface Science, 591, 133, (2005).
7. "Lateral Templating for Guided Self-Organization of Sputter Morphologies", Cuenat, H. Bola George, Kee-chul Chang, Jack Blakely, Mike Aziz, , J. Advanced Materials, 17, 2845, (2005)
8.  “Using Atomic Steps to Induce Texture in Polycrystalline Pentacene Films”, V. Ignatescu, J.-C. M. Hsu, A. C. Mayer, J. M. Blakely, and G. G. Malliaras, Applied Physics Letters 89 (25), 253116 (2006)
9. “Early Morphological Changes on the Si (111) Surfaces under High-Temperature UHV Annealing”, V. Ignatescu and J. M. Blakely, (submitted to Surface Science), (2007).
10. “Atomic Force Microscopy Studies of High Temperature Surface Phase Transitions on Quenched Silicon Samples”, V. Ignatescu and J. M. Blakely, (submitted to Surface Science), (2007).

• B.Sc.(lst class Hons.),Natural Philosophy (Physics), 1958, Glasgow Univ.
• Grad. Inst. Phys. (U.K.), 1958
• Ph.D. Natural Philosophy (Physics), Glasgow Univ., 1961
• Part-time instructor, Natural Philosophy, Glasgow Univ.         
• Research Fellow, Div. Eng. & Applied Physics, Harvard Univ.
• Assistant Prof., Materials Sciences & Eng., Cornell Univ., 1963                    
• Professor, Materials Science & Eng., Cornell University 1973-   
• Director, Materials Science & Eng., Cornell University, 1988-93 , 1997- 99
• Member Technical Staff, Sandia Labs., Albuquerque Summer1967,'69,'72
• Guggenheim Fellow, Cavendish Lab, Cambridge, U.K. 1970-71
• Visiting Scientist, Argonne National Lab, Argonne, IL 1976-77
• N.S.F. Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, CA 1977
• Science & Engineering Research (SERC) Fellow, Univ. York, U.K.1984
• Herbert Fisk Johnson Professorship, Cornell Univ 1998-
• Member: Amer. Phys. Society, Inst. Phys.(U.K.), Amer. Vac Soc , Materials Research Soc.
• Elected Fellow of American Physical Society (1978)
• Elected Fellow of Institute of Physics (U.K) (1972)