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Physical Measurement Laboratory

Nanoscale Device Characterization Division

Projects/Programs

Displaying 51 - 75 of 81
Layout of the Nanotechnology Xccelerator Reticle with 30 unique tiles occupying 41 different slots within the reticle.

The Nanotechnology Xccelerator

Ongoing
The Nanotechnology Xccelerator was announced on September 13, 2022 and was officially accepted for production at Skywater Technology Foundry using the Sky130 technology in Q1 2024. Sky130, which comes in both a conventional and open-source process design kit, is a 5-metal layer process. To...
EBIC Current

Neuromorphic Device Measurements

Ongoing
One type of device that is emerging as an attractive artificial synapse is the resistive switch, or memristor. These devices, which usually consist of a thin layer of oxide between two electrodes, have conductivity that depends on their history of applied voltage, and thus have highly nonlinear...
schematic of the MOTIS ion beam source

Novel Sources for Focused-ion Beams

Completed
Commercial focused ion beams (FIBs) are used in a wide variety of applications. For example, they serve as diagnostic tools, slicing through a nanodevice to expose its internal structure. They can also shape nanoscale materials either by adding atoms to a structure or by shaving them off. And they...
EDMR set up to measure the electrode process of an electrochemical cell.

Operando Measurements of Electrochemical (Charge-transfer) Processes

Completed
There are two ways to study a very fast process such as charge transfer. One can use very high-speed measurement that can follow the effect of the process, or one use a method that is sensitive only to the process itself. Either way has its weakness. Many fast measurements can follow the process...
NIST 193 nm Microscope.

Optical Methods for 3-D Nanostructure Metrology (Archived)

Completed
This project develops new approaches to optical microscopy based on a high magnification optical platform that samples the full 3-D scattered field. Both the semiconductor industry and the evolving nanomanufacturing sector are facing enormous challenges measuring nanometer scale features over large...
Spectroscopic ellipsometry measurement of a 2D monolayer and the optical property for such a thin layer.

Optical and Optoelectronic Materials Characterization

Ongoing
Today's electronics have reached a point where sheer computation power has combined form and function as the key driver of large consumer markets. The demand for portable and pervasive electronics with greater functionality promises significant changes over the next decades in how society interacts...
Schematic of quantum entangled molecules or nanoparticles in dual cavity system.

Photonic Quantum State Imaging Metrology

Ongoing
Fundamental understanding of quantum behavior of single molecules, which is a favorable candidate for quantum information processing technologies, has advanced gradually, relying on empirical studies mostly. This requires a measurement platform to study fundamental quantum characteristics in single...
A 3" wafer is seen concentric with the lower plasma electrode.

Precision Materials for Quantum Devices

Ongoing
MBE System Our fabrication system is composed of ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chambers that support the in-vacuum exchange of 75 mm wafers without exposure to air as seen in Figure 1. These chambers are: (1) a deposition chamber with electron gun deposition, UHV compatible sputter guns, in situ shadow...
The Daffodil Board

Prototyping Platforms for Emerging Technologies

Ongoing
Emerging technologies aim to overcome traditional memory limitations with higher density, lower power consumption, faster read/write speeds, better endurance, and lower cost [2]. Many new candidate memory elements are analog or stochastic, requiring new testing infrastructure, and the context of...
Schematic of unresolved imaging of a periodic structure. Extracting deep-subwavelength information from such images requires mastery of several techniques; this project seeks to integrate machine learning for metrology.

Quantitative Nanoscale Imaging Through Artificial Intelligence

Ongoing
This project extends optical capabilities for the characterization of nanoscale devices as they increase in complexity, with challenging new materials properties, thicknesses, and length scales that challenge simplistic applications of the fundamental equations of electromagnetism. Critical...
Quantum Hall System

Quantum anomalous Hall effect Theory

Ongoing
The quantum anomalous Hall effect is a phenomenon in which certain magnetic insulators exhibit a zero-field Hall resistance value, 𝑅 𝐻, that is precisely quantized in terms of fundamental constants of nature: 𝑅 𝐻 = ℎ/𝑛𝑒 2, where ℎ is Planck's constant, 𝑒 is the charge of the electron and 𝑛 is a...
Measuring the quantum value of resistance

Quantum Transport Measurements

Ongoing
It is necessary to isolate, control, and understand the fundamental physics of exotic states of matter to create nanoengineered systems with the requisite quantum properties for quantum information systems and advanced computing applications. We develop measurement capabilities and design test...
Measurements of transition probability vs. pulse length and detuning

Sequential Bayesian Experiment Design

Completed
We develop and publish the optbayesexpt python package. The package implements sequential Bayesian experiment design to control laboratory experiments for efficient measurements. The package is designed for measurements with: an experiment (possibly computational) that yields measurements and...
bilayer graphene graph

Si-Based Single Spin/Single Photon Measurement, Coherence and Manipulation

Ongoing
Devices based on moving and controlling single electrons offer the tantalizing possibility of achieving quantum information processing by virtue of their spin or charge coherent properties. We are pursuing CMOS-compatible Si-based quantum dots for a variety of goals, including:” Narrowband high-MHz...
single electron devices

Silicon-based single electron current standards

Ongoing
Our devices can manipulate and trap a single electron in a quantum dot through the application of voltages to electrostatically controlled tunnel barriers. By cycling these voltages appropriately, we are able to sequentially pump one electron at a time through the device. To produce a current...
Analog quantum simulators (AQS) Figure 1

Silicon-based Solid-State Analog Quantum Simulators

Ongoing
Why Atom-based Si AQS Analog quantum simulators are designed quantum systems with a tunable Hamiltonian to emulate complex quantum systems intractable using classical computers due to the exponential growth of the calculations with system size. Simulating strongly interacting fermions (electrons) on...
Schematic of device structure designed to utilize novel spin current generation in a ferromagnet (FM) to achieve electrical switching of a perpendicularly magnetized FM layer

Spin-orbit interaction in devices and quantum materials

Ongoing
The spin degree of freedom can provide a basis for next-generation electronic devices. Spintronic devices typically include materials with magnetic ordering, such as ferromagnets or antiferromagnets. The state of the magnetization influences charge and spin current through an effect known as...
Fig. 1. Die containing 285 superparamagnetic tunnel junctions.

Spintronics for Neuromorphic Computing

Ongoing
Magnetic tunnel junctions (see Fig. 1) consist of two thin films of ferromagnetic material separated by a few atomic layers of an insulating material. The insulator is so thin that electrons can tunnel quantum mechanically through it. The rate at which the electrons tunnel is affected by the...

Structure, Defects, and Scattering in Graphene

Completed
The graphene honeycomb lattice is a key element in determining many of graphene's spectacular properties, which are desirable for a host of electronic applications. The graphene 6-fold symmetric lattice gives rise to charge carriers behaving like light-waves having zero mass. The charge carriers in...
Fig. 1. Time re-Envisioned: Not a biproduct of computation but the domain in which information is encoded. Leads to different mathematical functions becoming energy efficient primitives.

Temporal Computing

Ongoing
In standard integrated circuits, information that is coded as ones and zeros is implemented by voltages on wires being high or low. The circuits consume energy during transitions between these voltages. Binary numbers have a voltage per bit so there are a lot of transitions each time a number...
Hamiltonian Learning

Theory: Designing the Nanoworld

Ongoing
Developing and exploiting nanodevices for quantum and nanotechnologies requires nanoscale and atomic scale modeling of ultrasmall structures, devices, their operation, and their response to probes. Key challenges of understanding physics at the quantum/classical interface and measurement at the...
Schematic of a radial p- n- Junction

Theory and Modeling of Materials for Renewable Energy

Completed
Nanostructured materials offer potential benefits for a range of renewable energy applications that rely critically on interfaces for separating charges, including photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and electrochemical energy storage. The use of nanostructures allows scientists and engineers to...
A current (white arrow) flowing through a tantalum film generates a current of spins (dark blue arrows) that impinges on the ferromagnetic cobalt iron boron layer and causes the magnetization (gold arrow) to charge directions (light blue arrow).

Theory of Spin-Orbit Torque

Completed
A ferromagnetic material such as iron acquires its magnetization because the magnetic orientation of its constituent atoms all line up in the same way. Because individual electrons also have an intrinsic magnetic moment – which is often referred to as the electron “spin” - they can interact with...
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