Jesús A. del Alamo

Research

Xtreme Transistors

Microelectronics has transformed human society in the last 60 years like no other technology before. The microelectronics revolution has brought immeasurable improvements in the quality of life for billions of people through its impact on communications, computation, health, transportation, energy, education and entertainment, to name a few areas of human concern. As microelectronics becomes transformed into nanoelectronics, the challenges to maintain this revolutionary progress and the benefits that come with it mount.

Our research group at MIT investigates new transistor designs with the goal of pushing the frontiers of electronics to higher frequencies, higher speed, smaller size, lower power consumption, higher operating temperature or to switch electrical power or amplify electrical signals at higher power levels. This is relevant for applications in computation, communications, signal processing, and energy management. Our research currently emphasizes III-V and III-N compound semiconductors but we are also interested in newer materials such as diamond.

Our research is eminently experimental. We prototype our own transistors and nanoscale devices at the facilities of the MIT.nano MIT. We design them using our CAD tools and we fabricate them in our clean rooms. We then characterize their operation in our own measurement laboratory. Our research leverages heterostructures and materials acquired from commercial sources or from a wide range of collaborators from all over the world.

We also study the reliability of transistors under prolonged electrical, thermal and environmental stress. We build models and carry out simulations in order to understand the underlying degradation physics. All our reliability research is performed in close connection with industrial partners that supply us with devices.