ECE Seminar with Sokrates T. Pantelides

Atomic-Scale Modeling of Device Reliability - The Defects That Cause the TroubleWith Sokrates T. PantelidesDepartment of Physics and Astronomy Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceVanderbilt University Faculty Host: Theodore MoustakasRefreshments will be served outside Room 339 at 3:45 p.m.Abstract: Degradation of electronic devices by hot electrons is universally attributed to the generation of defects, but the mechanisms for defect generation and the specific nature of the pertinent defects are not known for most systems. Here, we describe several recent case studies in III-V high-electron-mobility transistors and Si and SiC MOSFETs that illustrate the power of combining density functional calculations and experimental data to identify the pertinent defects and associated degradation mechanisms. In all cases, benign pre-existing defects are either depassivated (irreversible degradation) or transformed to a metastable state (reversible degradation). A scheme for modeling device degradation by combining the atomic-scale defect processes that are responsible for degradation with Monte Carlo modeling of electron densities in real devices will be demonstrated.Primary collaborators: R. D. Schrimpf, D. M. Fleetwood, and R. A. Reed (Vanderbilt University)About the Speaker: Sokrates T. Pantelides is the University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Engineering, William A. and Nancy F. McMinn Professor of Physics, and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee. He holds a secondary appointment as Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1973. Before joining Vanderbilt in 1994, he spent 20 years at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he carried out theoretical research in semiconductors and served as manager, senior manager, and program director. He is author or coauthor of about 450 research articles and editor of eight books. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, The Materials Research Society, and The American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research is theoretical and focuses on the structure, defect dynamics, and electronic properties of electronic materials, radiation effects, microscopy, transport in molecules and thin films, and catalysis.

When 4:00 pm on Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Location Photonics Center, 8 Saint Mary’s St., Room 339