FERROELECTRIC
MATERIALS & DEVICES
GROUP
Manipulating Ferroelectric Materials &
Integrating Ferroelectric Devices
for Microelectronics
GOAL
Addressing Challenges in Energy Consumption-Storage-Generation for Sustainable Microelectronics
As the global demand for computational power continues to rise, its exponentially growing energy implications can no longer be ignored; the solution lies with new materials & device physics.
Our group aims to address modern energy grand challenges -- namely the unsustainable exponential rise in global energy consumption from computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices --
from a microelectronics perspective, harnessing collective electronic phenomena in ferroelectric materials, engineered at the unit cell level.
Energy-Efficient Electronics
Energy demand from computing has been increasing much faster than the world's energy production; at this rate, in 20 years, computing will require more electricity than the world can generate; novel energy-efficient computing paradigms are required
Energy-Autonomous Electronics
The exponential rise of IoT smart devices (approaching 1 trillion) and heat dissipation challenges in modern microchips demand innovations in self-powered nanotechnologies - spanning energy storage, energy harvesting, power delivery - integrated on-chip
3D Microelectronics
3D ICs with computing (energy-efficient logic + high-bandwidth memory), energy tech (energy storage, nanogenerators, power delivery) & sensing (in-sensor processing) integrated on-chip for intelligent autonomous data processing at the edge, all leveraging ferroelectric building blocks
Next-Gen Today's Microelectronics
Accelerating the translation of electronic devices with unprecedented performance to government & commercial semiconductor foundries by engineering ferroelectric order and breakthrough electronic responses in simple materials used in modern microelectronics
energy-efficient electronics
exploiting collective electronic phenomena
energy-autonomous electronics
from low-power to self-powered electronics
edge electronics
3D-integrated micro AI engines
lab-to-fab translation
university research to wafer-scale manufacturing
APPROACH
Designing Emergent Electronic Phenomena in Atomically-Engineered Ferroelectric Materials & Integration into CMOS Technology
We are an interdisciplinary group at the intersection of materials science, condensed matter physics, and electrical engineering to realize the applied impact of ferroelectric materials.
Rather than exploring the entire periodic table, we focus on manipulating simple dielectrics in today's mass production microelectronics and their integration with current (& next-generation) semiconductors.
Materials Science
atomic-scale engineering
Inversion symmetry breaking & phase transitions
Atomic-layer thin films, superlattices, metastable polymorphs
Condensed Matter
emergent (negative) electronic phenomena
Building blocks: collective electronic order, phase transitions
Negative responses: capacitance, piezoelectricity, compressibility
Nanoelectronics
on-chip computing & energy technologies
Computing: logic transistors, nonvolatile memory, AI hardware
Energy: energy storage & harvesting & power delivery capacitors
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Harnessing ferroelectronics to discover new paradigms for integrated circuit building blocks
In order to accelerate the technological adoption of new electronic devices (Lab-to-Fab translation), we focus on manipulating simple materials in today's mass production microelectronics.
In particular, we engineer ferroelectric order in HfO2-ZrO2 -- the dielectric used in today's state-of-the-art logic transistors and memory capacitors -- to redesign integrated circuit building blocks.
Re-imagining the memristor
from defective (ionic) to collective (ferroelectric) order for atomic-scale resistive switching
Lab-to-Fab | Academia
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) confirmation of ultrathin ferroelectricity in HfO2-ZrO2 on Si ACS AMI 2021 | Nature Electronics 2023
Academia: Spurred theoretical focus on unconventional origins of ferroelectricity in ultrathin HfO2-ZrO2
Re-imagining the transistor
from high-k dielectric to negative-k ferroelectrics
for ultralow power transistor operation
Lab-to-Fab
U.S. DoD Foundry integration of NC gate stack into Defense Foundry transistor tech: IEDM 2022
Samsung Electronics integration of same NC stack into their FinFET tech: Nature Electronics 2023
Intel highlighted NC technology as a future for energy-efficient computing: Science 2022
GlobalFoundries collaborative NC integration into next-gen GF FDX & FinFET platforms
Re-imagining the capacitor
from electrochemical to electrostatic storage
for ultra-dense ultra-fast capacitors
Lab-to-Fab
U.S. DoD Foundry integration of same NC energy storage stack into 3D cap process: Nature 2024
The Pentagon energy storage technology presented to US military decision-makers at the Pentagon DARPA Demo Day 2023
Samsung Electromechanics collaborative research for next-gen MLCCs, solid-state batteries, and Si microcapacitors
Re-imagining the diode
from p-n junctions to ferroelectric diodes
for ultrahigh scalability compute-in-mem arrays
in prep
RESEARCH AREAS
New Paradigms for Electronic Materials & Devices
Materials Design
Ferroelectric Materials for Microelectronics
(i) Unprecedented electronic properties via electronic phenomena (e.g. negative capacitance, phase transitions) stabilized in composite systems with collective electronic order (e.g. ferroelectricity)
(ii) Accelerated Lab-to-Fab translation by stabilizing such novel phenomena in CMOS-compatible materials
Computing & Memory
More Moore: Energy-Efficient Electronics
(i) From high-k dielectrics to negative-k ferroelectrics for advanced logic transistors with ultralow power operation
(ii) From defective (ionic) to collective (ferroic) phenomena for energy-efficient and area-efficient nonvolatile high-bandwidth memory and analog artificial intelligence (AI) hardware accelerators
Energy & Power
More than Moore: Energy-Autonomous Electronics
(i) From electrochemical to electrostatic energy storage for on-chip ultracapacitors and power delivery
(ii) From thermoelectric to pyroelectric thermal-energy conversion for on-chip energy harvesting and thermal management
TOOLBOX
Atoms to Devices
Materials-by-Design Synthesis
To stabilize emergent phenomena beyond the standard unit cell, we utilize Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) to manufacture hierarchical “super-cells”. ALD, used in today's microelectronics, deposits atomically-precise films across large-area substrates to enable large-scale integration and facilitate Lab-to-Fab translation.
Thin Film Characterization
To understand the microscopic origins underlying electronic metamaterials, we employ (i) synchrotron x-rays (diffraction, spectroscopy, microscopy), (ii) microscopy (electron, scanning probe), and (iii) transport (ultrafast, cryogenic, etc) at National Laboratories, MIT facilities, and in-house setups.
Electronic Devices
To realize enhanced performance derived from emergent symmetry-broken phenomena, we integrate electronic metamaterials into relevant device structures (e.g. capacitors, transistors) fabricated (i) in-house at MIT.nano (ii) next-door at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and (iii) in collaboration with semiconductor industries.
