“Ballistic Quantum Transport in Nano Devices and Circuits” by Professor Vijay K. Arora, Division of Engineering and Physics, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA.  And Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Date:  August 4, 2010 (Wednesday)
Time:  7:00pm – 8:30pm; 6:30pm networking
Venue:  PSDC, Room 2302, 1 Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang

Admission is free

Refreshments will be served before the lecture.  Network and interact with like-minded engineers and researchers before the seminar begins.

Abstract

Ohm’s law, a linear current-voltage paradigm, has been and continues to be the basis for characterizing, evaluating performance, and designing integrated circuits. Its validity is under scrutiny as devices are scaled down to nanometer dimensions. In a macro-device of the twentieth century (typical size L = 1 cm), the critical voltage for triggering the nonohmic behavior, , was 3.7 kV for the room-temperature thermal voltage q and an ohmic mean free path = 70 nm for InGaAs, for example. In these macro-circuits, a 5-V logic voltage was well within the ohmic regime (V<<Vc). However, as we begin the twenty-first century, a typical device size, L, is in deca-nanmometer regime and going smaller, with a critical voltage of 0.37 V or lower. In this micro/nano-circuit, even a low logic voltage of 1 V is above the critical voltage (V>>Vc). As dimensions are further scaled down to nanometer scale comparable to the de Broglie wavelength, quantum effects cannot be ignored and result in reduced dimensionality. The current is now controlled by ballistic velocity that is comparable to an appropriate thermal velocity for nondegenerate and Fermi velocity for degenerate systems for a given dimensionality. A quantum emission may lower the ballistic velocity. Mobility degradation is encountered due to ballistic injection from the contacts when the channel length is smaller than the scattering-limited mean free path. A review of the physics behind breakdown of Ohm’s law and existence of quantum effects in engineering low-dimensional nanoelectronic devices is given. It will be shown how familiar voltage and current division laws, the transient phenomenon, and signal processing is affected in micro/nano-regime opening challenges and opportunities for tomorrow’s physicists and nano-engineers.

Speaker

Vijay K. Arora, a tenured Professor of Electrical Engineering and Engineering Management at Wilkes University, held distinguished visiting appointments at the University of Illinois, the University of Tokyo, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, the University of Western Australia, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). He is recipient of the Brain Gain fellowship of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM).

His research interests include mobility limiting mechanisms in high-speed devices, including quantum and high-field effects. Professor Arora has authored or co-authored over 150 papers on scientific, managerial and educational issues. As past chair of the International Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), he organized several international events. As chair of the 1996 ASEE Mid-Atlantic Conference, he edited and published the proceedings entitled Re-Engineering Education and Training for a Competitive Global Economy. Professor Arora chaired NanoSingapore2006 Conference and is a designated Chair of NanoMalaysia 2011 to be held January 4-7, 2011. Professor Arora is on the Distinguished Lecturer Program of the IEEE Electron Devices Society and APS Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics.