"User-Friendly Software Suite for HPC Grazing Incidence Scattering Modeling and Simulation Code"

Grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) has been undergoing a revolution recently as a result of the strong emphasis in materials science on surface patterning and thin film structures. This technique is presently the only one available which provides statistical information on nanometer features averaged over large sample sizes, and has become extremely important in the development of novel thin film materials and manufacturing processes for advanced functional devices, including photovoltaics, batteries, and fuel cells. In addition, groups such as the semiconductor industry are interested in utilizing GISAXS as a metrology characterization tool for engineering materials with progressively smaller structural features in next generation computer chips and hard disk drives. However, the major bottleneck preventing GISAXS from reaching its full potential persists in the availability of modeling and simulation resources to aid in interpreting the experimental data. Jema Technologies LLC, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), proposes to create a user-friendly software suite for the open source code High Performance GISAXS (HipGISAXS). This code, which was originally developed at LBNL with funding from the LDRD program, is currently the only massively parallel, comprehensive, and flexible code for simulating GISAXS images on both graphics processors and CPUs. Furthermore, it has the unique capability to simulate customized nano-objects and thin film nanocomposite materials accurately. The software package proposed herein will make HipGISAXS more widely useable for the manufacturing and engineering industries by optimizing human-computer interaction through a well-designed graphical user interface, simplification of user input, and visualization of simulation output.