Perhaps most famously with the discovery of the quantum Hall effect in Silicon MOS inversion layers, there has been a long and fruitful synergy of materials engineering, electronic device development, and fundamental condensed-matter physics studies.  The development of high quality materials and heterostructures can lead to the discovery of new physics, and the application of well-understood condensed matter phenomena is a useful tool in the development of new material systems for specific applications. This topic seeks proposals working at this interface between applied electronic materials development and fundamental electronic transport study.

Ultra-wide bandgap materials are those with a bandgap higher than Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC), whose bandgaps are 3.4eV and 3.3eV respectively. Gallium Oxide (Ga2O3), with its bandgap of 4.5 eV, and Aluminum Gallium Nitride (AIGaN), with a bandgap as high as 6.2 eV for binary AIN, offer promise for higher performance power electronics and RF electronics devices due to their larger bandgaps critical breakdown electric fields. In order to realize practical technologies based on these materials and their heterostructures, an understanding of their fundamental electronic transport properties, including scattering, doping, and defects are needed.

Beyond traditional semiconductors such as ultra-wide bandgap materials, quantum materials with novel phases, such as topological and/or strongly correlated electronic phases, are of interest for application to non-traditional approaches to computing, sensing, and other areas enabled by new condensed-matter states.             

Work under this topic is unclassified and without ITAR restrictions.

Reference:

Neal et al. “Zeeman spin-splitting in the (010) β-Ga2O3 two-dimensional electron gas” Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 262103 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5131736

key words

Gallium Oxide; Ga2O3; Aluminum Nitride; AlN; ultra-wide bandgap; topological materials; strongly correlated phases; electronics; transport

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral and Senior applicants