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While over one-third of the U.S. economy and much of our national security infrastructure directly depends on precision timing, there has been to date no educational workforce development program in the US dedicated to training young talent in the timekeeping technologies that underpin our society. The Alabama Collaborative for Contemporary Education in Precision Timing (ACCEPT) Program is a new, 5-year National Research Traineeship program funded by the National Science Foundation, designed to train the next generation of graduate (MS and PhD) degree holders in a field of critical important to our nation. ACCEPT will provide a comprehensive training and educational opportunity for trainees from physics, mathematics, and engineering. Trainees will combine coursework across these three departments with professional development in critical areas identified by precision timing experts (teamwork, leadership, ethics, communication), and put their training into practice via research experiences with ACCEPT partners, student-led initiatives, and networking at conferences and workshops. In this paper, we present the current objectives, vision, and methodology of our new program, initial steps toward building a comprehensive training facility, and initial research and demonstration projects. 

Abstract Superconducting resonators with high quality factors have been fabricated from aluminum films, suggesting potential applications in quantum computing. Improvement of thin film crystal quality and removal of void and pinhole defects will improve quality factor and functional yield. Epitaxial aluminum films with superb crystallinity, high surface smoothness, and interface sharpness were successfully grown on the c-plane of sapphire using sputter beam epitaxy. This study assesses the effects of varying substrate preparation conditions and growth and prebake temperatures on crystallinity and smoothness. X-ray diffraction and reflectivity measurements yield extensive Laue oscillations and Kiessig thickness fringes for films grown at 200 °C under 15 mTorr Ar, indicating excellent crystallinity and surface smoothness; moreover, an additional substrate preparation procedure which involves (1) a modified substrate cleaning procedure and (2) prebake at 700 °C in 20 mTorr O 2 is shown by atomic force microscopy to yield nearly pinhole-free film growth while maintaining epitaxy and high crystal quality. The modified cleaning procedure is environmentally friendly and eliminates the acid etch steps common to conventional sapphire preparation, suggesting potential industrial application both on standard epitaxial and patterned surface sapphire substrates.