ASCENT Theme 3 Liaison Meeting / Ferroelectric Scandium Aluminum Nitride: New opportunities for Electronics and Photonics based on Silicon and GaN

Ferroelectric Scandium Aluminum Nitride: New opportunities for Electronics and Photonics based on Silicon and GaN


Presenter: Debdeep Jena (Cornell)

Abstract
Scandium Aluminum Nitride was discovered to exhibit ferroelectricity in 2019. In this presentation, I will discuss the properties of ScAlN studied at Cornell. I will discuss how ScAlN is classified as a “wide-bandgap ferroelectric”, and the competition that exists between its ferroelectric coercive field and the breakdown field. I will discuss the observed differences in the properties of thin films of ScAlN deposited by sputtering and by epitaxial growth, and how the properties scale to thin layers in initial studies in capacitors and FETs. If time permits, the exciting potential of this new ferroelectric in the Si CMOS platform as well as in the GaN RF and power electronics platform will be briefly discussed.

Presenter Information

Debdeep Jena [website] is the David E. Burr Professor at Cornell University. His teaching and research are in the quantum physics of semiconductors and electronic and photonic devices based on quantized semiconductor structures (e.g. Nitrides, Oxides, 2D Materials), and their heterostructures with superconductors, ferroelectrics and magnets, with device applications in energy-efficient transistors, light-emitting diodes and RF and power electronics and quantum computation and communications.  His research is driven by the goal to enable orders of magnitude increase in the energy efficiency and speed for computation, memory, communications, lighting, and electrical energy management ranging from the chip to the grid. The research from his group has been published in more than 300 journal papers including in Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters and Electron Device Letters. Several patents have been granted for the group’s research work.  He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and is the winner of teaching awards and research awards such as the ISCS young scientist award in 2012, MBE young scientist award in 2014, and awards from the industry such as the IBM faculty award in 2012, and most recently the Intel outstanding research award in 2021.

This meeting is only available to the JUMP research community, such as Principal Investigators, Postdoc researchers, Students, and Industry/Government liaisons.