DAAD Rise Germany

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) RISE Germany Fellowship Summer 2022

DAAD RISE Germany is a jointly funded award from German Science Foundation (DFG) and German Academic Exchange (DAAD) allowing a summer-long STEM research project at a German university or research institution in Germany. During summer 2022, I got an opportunity to conduct research on 2D (photo) transistors at the Institute for Micro and Nanotechnology at Technical University of Ilmenau (Institut für Mikro- und Nanotechnologien, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany). This opportunity provided me with areas of both academic and cultural growth, as the research topic itself built upon my previous research experiences, strengthening my desire to continue studying 2D materials post graduation, and living in the central Germany for 3 months helped me to observe and experience the German history and culture to its fullest


Figure [1] (Left to Right): ReS2 on Si Wafer with alignment marks, AFM of the same sample, ReS2 on patterned electrode fingers.

Institute for Mico- and Nanotechnology is a department led by Univ. -Prof. Dr.-Ing Steffen Strehle at Technical University of Ilmenau (TU Ilmenau).

I visited the department during the summer of 2022 as a DAAD RISE Fellow, where my work was focused on exploration of 2D materials for (photo)transistor applications. My major work revolved around fabrication of transistors using ReS2 (Rehinum Disulphide). Details of my work:


  • Explored the electrical and optical properties of Rhenium Disulphide (ReS2) based 3-pin and 4-pin thin phototransistors in Infrared region of light spectrum.

  • Executed hands-on 2D material synthesis techniques such as Scotch tape/Nitto tape-based exfoliation on PDMS stacks, which were then transferred onto target wafers using standard dry transfer techniques for further lithography and liftoff processes.

  • Developed an electrical characterization setup for quasi-static measurements using Keithley bi-channel Source Measuring Unit, wave form generators, and source meters, integrated via MATLAB code for unified operation, data collection, and plotting purposes.

Figure (2): Test IV data from the testing setup

Some of the pictures from my travels during the summer 2022 in Europe