Charles Winter
Wayne State University, MI·Chemistry
Every modern computer chip is built from stacks of films only a few atoms thick, laid down inside trenches and holes so narrow that ordinary coating methods cannot reach the bottom. Atomic layer deposition solves this by growing a film one atomic layer at a time: a vapor-phase molecule, the precursor, reacts with the surface, the chamber is purged, and the cycle repeats, giving even coverage deep inside nanoscale features.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
atomic layer deposition
thin films
lanthanides
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Synthesize new volatile and thermally stable lanthanide-containing molecules for use as atomic layer deposition precursors, and characterize how they evaporate and how well they withstand heating.
- Determine how variations in precursor molecular structure affect film purity, by growing lanthanide metal films from the new compounds using thermal atomic layer deposition, which uses heat rather than a plasma.
- Grow lanthanide silicide films, metal-silicon compounds of interest for advanced transistor structures, from the new precursors and assess coverage inside narrow, deep nanoscale features.
- Characterize the properties of the deposited lanthanide metal and lanthanide silicide materials to evaluate their suitability for advanced transistors, in collaboration with a semiconductor equipment company.
More about the research
The limiting factor is chemistry. For many metals, no precursor molecule exists that evaporates readily, survives heating without decomposing, and still reacts cleanly to leave pure metal behind. This project tackles that gap for the lanthanides, the rare-earth metals being considered for next-generation transistor structures.
Why it matters
Shrinking transistors need thin metal and metal-silicon layers deposited with atomic precision inside extremely narrow features, and the precursor molecules to do this for rare-earth metals largely do not exist. New lanthanide precursors and deposition processes could give chip manufacturers practical routes to these materials, and the design rules learned could inform precursor chemistry for thin-film growth more broadly.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Seokjhin Kim
Oklahoma State University, OK·Engineering
Determine how catalytic atomic layer deposition heals molecular-scale defects in zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) membranes, monitored in real time during gas separation testing.
Seyed Sadeghi
University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL·Physics
Develop an in-vacuum atomic layer deposition system with in-situ characterization tools to fabricate defect-free oxide/gold Schottky junctions thinner than 2 nm that capture hot electrons without scattering.
Justin Caram
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Chemistry
Determine how ligand symmetry, denticity and electronic structure control the linewidths and oscillator strengths of f-to-f transitions in lanthanide complexes, starting with ytterbium compounds.
The school
Wayne State University: 21 labs on PI Pages, $292M a year on research, 194 research doctorates a year.
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