Solid State Electronics

Solid-state electronics research is concerned with the study and development of 21st century nanoscale materials and devices to meet the continual demand for ultra-high-performance and extremely miniaturized electronics. The current trend in solid-state electronics is gradually to introduce non-traditional materials and to exploit quantum effects for improved device performance. Our work at the University of Alberta resonates with this basic philosophy, and ranges from the fundamental study of transport and optical phenomena in ultra-small devices to the development of novel transistors, memories, and solar cells. Our research programs have close ties to the U of A's Nanofabrication Facility and on-campus National Institute for Nanotechnology, which boast state-of-the-art nanofabrication and characterization facilities and computational resources.

Current research:

• wide bandgap, narrow bandgap, and amorphous materials for optical, ultra-low-power digital, ultra-high-frequency THz, and high-efficiency electronics
• carbon-based transistors (carbon nanotubes and graphene) and III-V transistors using the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) approach and the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE)
• electron spin and magnetic-field effects in nanowires
• high density, spin-based nanoscale memory circuits
• fundamental charge-transport and nanoscale phenomena (characterization and modeling of charge transport in one-dimensional semiconductor structures; excitons; charge-transfer processes at dye semiconductor, quantum-dot-semiconductor, and dye-quantum-dot interfaces)
• nanostructured semiconductors