FERROELECTRIC
MATERIALS & DEVICES
GROUP
Manipulating & Integrating Ferroelectric Materials
for Microelectronics
GOAL
Addressing Challenges in Energy Consumption-Storage-Generation for Sustainable Microelectronics
We aim to address key energy challenges - particularly the 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 stacking of computing (energy-efficient logic & high-bandwidth memory), energy tech (energy storage + harvesting, power delivery), thermal mgmt & sensing on-chip for autonomous data processing (from Cloud to Edge Intelligence) & 3D ICs with enhanced energy-latency performance
Next-Gen Today's Microelectronics
Accelerating the translation of electronic devices with breakthrough performance to government & commercial semiconductor foundries by engineering materials used in today's microelectronics.
energy-efficient electronics
exploiting collective electronic phenomena
energy-autonomous electronics
ubiquitous self-powered smart devices
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 materials in today's mass production microelectronics to accelerate the technological adoption of new electronic devices.
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.
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
Re-imagining the resistor
from defective (ionic) to collective (ferroic) order
for atomic-scale resistive switching
Lab-to-Fab
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) confirmation of ultrathin ferroelectricity in HfO2-ZrO2 on Si
ACS AMI 2021 | Nature Electronics 2023
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 my NC gate stack into Defense Foundry transistor techn: IEDM 2022
Samsung Electronics integration of my NC stack into their FinFET tech: Nature Electronics 2023
Intel highlighted my NC technology as a future for energy-efficient computing: Science 2022
Global Foundries 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 my NC energy storage stack into 3D cap process: Nature 2024
The Pentagon presented this energy storage technology 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 unprecedented scalability AI HW accelerators
in prep
Lab-to-Fab
RESEARCH AREAS
New Paradigms for Electronic Materials & Devices
Materials Design
Electronic Metamaterials for Microelectronics
(i) Unprecedented electronic properties via negative electronic phenomena (e.g. negative capacitance) 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.
