Currently, 70% of all electrical power consumed is routed through power electronics and this fraction is set to increase even faster with further addition of renewable sources to the grid and electrification of transportation. A significant reduction in size, weight, and power loss (SWaP) of power electronics will revolutionize the way the electric grid operates. The lion’s share of power electronics is based on silicon, with a bandgap of 1.1 eV. A significant reduction in SWaP is possible by migrating to semiconductors with wider bandgaps than silicon. This is already evidenced by the increasing market share of power electronics based on GaN (bandgap 3.4 eV) and SiC (bandgap 3.2 eV). Similarly, these wider bandgap materials can also push the performance of radio frequency (RF) devices for telecommunications and radars. Over the past 10 - 15 years, β-Ga2O3 and AlN, with ultra-wide bandgaps (UWBG) of 4.8 eV and 6.2 eV, respectively, have emerged as promising materials platforms for next generation power and RF electronics. In the first half of this seminar, I will outline my group’s work on metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) synthesis, processing, and characterization of β-Ga2O3 and AlN epitaxial thin films and heterostructures for next generation power ad RF devices.
The energy consumption of computing is doubling every three years while the world’s energy production is growing by approximately 2% a year, leading to a scenario where up to 10% of total energy production will be used for computation by 2040. New materials and computing paradigms are needed to head off this scenario. In the second half of my talk, I will outline my group’s work on novel, lower dimensional oxide metals for electrical interconnects in integrated circuits to address this challenge.
Hari Nair received his BS from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. His doctoral work involved molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) synthesis of GaSb-based semiconductor alloys for mid-infrared diode lasers. Following that he moved to Cornell as a postdoctoral researcher working on MBE synthesis of complex oxides. Hari Nair is currently an assistant professor in Cornell MSE working on synthesis, processing and characterization of next generation of materials for electronics, optoelectronics and quantum information systems.