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Electronics

Semiconductors

Projects/Programs

Displaying 26 - 50 of 98
A time series of a MoS2 flake exposed to increasing time under electrical stress shows the growth of defects denoted with red and yellow areas over time. S= source and D = drain electrode.

Evaluation of 2D and WBG Material Quality Toward Device Reliability

Ongoing
Two-dimensional (2D) and wide band gap (WBG) materials are some of the latest materials classes having the potential to be transformative because of their high carrier mobilities, tunable bandgap, and atomic-scale film thicknesses. Unexpected degradation and failure in device performance is often
extreme atom probe tomography illustration

Extreme Atom Probe Tomography

Ongoing
Sub-nanometer-resolved 3-D chemical mapping of any atom in any solid continues to be an imperative goal of materials research. If reduced to practice, it would have profound scientific, engineering, and economic impacts on U.S. industries collectively worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Such
Reflectance of two materials

Extreme ultraviolet optical constants

Ongoing
Measurements of EUV optical constants are often made by measuring the absorption or near-normal-incidence reflectivity, then performing transforms to obtain both the real and imaginary parts of the index. These sorts of measurements have considerable uncertainty because they require knowledge of
SLowFlowS diagrams

Flow Metering and Properties for Semiconductor Process Gases

Ongoing
A type of flow meter called a mass flow controller (MFC) is used to regulate gas flow in order to produce the desired structures during chip fabrication. As semiconductor manufacturing advances, the requirements on MFC performance are increasingly strict: any process variation can reduce device
Fundamental Electromagnetic Technologies and Standards

Fundamental Electromagnetic Technologies and Standards

Ongoing
This focus area develops theory, metrology, and standards for the technologies upon which the future of both wired and wireless communications depends. These developments are then leveraged to provide better measurement services to U.S. industry through extended frequency range, lowered uncertainty

Fundamental Metrology for Communications

Ongoing
Engineers designing the next generation of wireless applications and devices must work around the fundamental issue of radio interference. NIST CTL’s RF Technology High Speed Electronics group focuses on fundamental measurement and modeling of nonlinear microwave systems, devices and materials that
Electron microscopy images

GaN Nanowire Growth

Ongoing
Selective epitaxy: We have demonstrated that the diameter and placement of nanowires can be controlled by using silicon nitride (SiNx) masks on top of MBE-grown buffer layers (see figure). With electron beam lithography, several patterns with 3 mm die size that provide over 100,000 controlled
nanowires

GaN Nanowire Metrology and Applications

Ongoing
GaN Nanowire LEDs: Our selective epitaxy methods and dopant characterization techniques have enabled fabrication of arrays of nanowire LEDs with controlled location and spatial layout. This development is complemented by modeling of the carrier flow and recombination. These LEDs were combined to
Diagram showing the electro-thermo-mechanical relations in a crystal

Genomics of Electronic Materials

Ongoing
We approach this multidimensional characterization problem by developing measurement-based techniques to rapidly quantify all of the relevant properties of thin-film materials, interfaces, and microelectronic structures. We make extensive use of finite-element simulations, as well as linear and non
Microscope image of a crossbar array

Hardware Accelerators for Neural Networks

Ongoing
One promising candidate for building a hardware accelerator comes from the field of spintronics, where information is carried by electronic spin rather than charge. Magnetic tunnel junctions are particularly suited because of their multifunctionality and compatibility with standard integrated
Temporal Chip

Hardware Accelerators for Statistical Computing

Ongoing
Finding good solutions to many hard problems, like combinatorial optimization and traveling salesman problems, counterintuitively requires making the estimated solution worse before making it better. This situation results from many hard problems having many “solutions” that cannot be improved
Today, device performance needs to be evaluated to determine success of materials development. This project will advance metrology for magnetic materials and develop models to predict device performance.

High Speed Metrology for Magnetoelectronic Devices and Models

Ongoing
The U.S. Semiconductor industry is integrating ferromagnet-based microelectronic devices such as magnetic RAM (MRAM) into existing silicon-based technologies. MRAM has much shorter write times and higher write endurance than the embedded Flash currently used. These properties makes MRAM highly

High-Frequency Electronics

Ongoing
This project supports the metrology of advanced electronic circuits and systems through many activities centered around accurate measurements and characterizations, improving device models and designs, enabling traceability of complicated electronics systems, and incorporating advanced technologies
Small array of transistors designed for single device integration.

Integrated CMOS Testbeds for Nanoelectronics and Machine Learning

Ongoing
The increasingly complex device requirements for next-generation computing architectures such as neuromorphic computing or nanoelectronic machine learning accelerators present challenges for researchers across the spectrum of institutions, from small businesses and universities to government
Crossbar Memory Arrays

Integrated Testbeds for Advanced Metrology

Ongoing
Crossbar Memory Arrays An especially prolific structure in memory architectures aimed at accelerating neural network operation is the crossbar array (Fig. 1). We produce medium-scale arrays that hold up to 20,000 nanodevices which can be characterized, read from, and written to individually or in

Light-matter interactions in Semiconductor Nanostructures

Ongoing
We investigate the interaction of light with semiconductor-based nanostructures. We extend concepts of entanglement and coherence in atomic physics to our solid-state systems. Our devices are based on semiconductors, like GaAs. We use InAs quantum dots (QDs) in GaAs as artificial atoms; they have

Magnetic Random Access Memory

Ongoing
Focus areas include (1) the fundamental understanding of the interactions between spin and magnetic materials and materials with large spin-orbit scattering; (2) the nonlinear dynamics of both individual and interacting nanoscale magnetic systems; and (3) the role of thermal noise in nanomagnetic
Custom-built wafer level probes in position to perform EDMR measurements on fully processed transistors.

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Ongoing
Custom-built wafer level probes in position to perform EDMR measurements on fully processed transistors. Electronics are all around us and have completely reinvented nearly every aspect of our society. Virtually any system, large or small, contains some type of electronics that may or may not be
complex oxides

Measurements of Point-Defect Chemistry in Complex Oxides

Ongoing
Project Goal: To develop magnetic resonance, x-ray absorption, electron diffraction, and electrical conductivity measurements to better characterize dilute concentrations of point defects in oxide materials and effectively correlate electro-mechanical properties to measured defect chemistry. Oxide
STM image of the surface states of a topological insulator - 3D perspective

Measuring Topological Insulator Surface State Properties

Ongoing
A family of TI materials can by synthesized by combining binary compounds of Bismuth (Bi) or Antimony (Sb) with Selenium (Se) and Tellurium (Te) to form Bi 2Se 3, Bi 2Te 3, and Sb 2Te 3 compounds. In these material compounds the spin of the electron has a strong interaction with the motion of the
A line drawing of a woman's head styled like a classical carved bust

METIS

Ongoing
A Metrology Exchange to Innovate in Semiconductors
Schematic diagram of a 3D stacked integrated circuit (3D-SIC), achieved using copper through-silicon via interconnects.

Metrology for Emerging Integrated Systems

Ongoing
The Emerging Integrated Systems Metrology program supports measurements for advanced manufacturing and secure nano-manufacturing, novel devices and electronic materials. Specifically, the program aims to develop the metrology required to enable a quantitative assessment and physical understanding of