CAREER: Terahertz Electronics based on Nitride Nanowire Transistors

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公法111-5)资助的。这项研究的目的是将电子设备的极限频率提高到太赫兹频率，并提高社会对电子技术和纳米技术相结合所提供的新可能性的认识。该方法的基础是展示氮化物纳米线晶体管的优越性能，并确定这些新设备的电路级集成的最佳方法。这项研究将使开发超宽带无线通信、先进成像和雷达、电子太赫兹光谱和太赫兹数字计算所需的基本构件成为可能。拟议计划的智力优势在于最大限度地利用氮化物半导体的灵活性和独特特性，以及先进的加工技术和高频分析和建模。通过这一结合了电气工程、材料科学和半导体物理的跨学科方法，该项目将展示新的突破，将把高频电子性能的极限推向太赫兹障碍。这项工作的更广泛影响是提高社会对电气工程中一些最令人兴奋的新挑战的认识。这项努力将通过许多外联活动与拟议的研究高度结合，包括学生教育(特别重视代表性不足的学生)，与高中教师合作开发K-12教育的教学模块，通过互联网和虚拟实验室传播研究成果，以及与电子行业合作，将拟议的研究转化为商业应用。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The objective of this research is to push the limits of electronics to THz frequencies and to increase society?s awareness to the new possibilities offered by the combination of electronics and nanotechnology. The approach is based on demonstrating the superior performance of nitride nanowire transistors and on identifying the best methods for circuit-level integration of these new devices. This research will enable the basic building blocks required for the development of ultra-broadband wireless communication, advanced imaging and radar, electronic THz spectroscopy and THz digital computation.The intellectual merit of the proposed program lies in maximally leveraging the flexibility and unique properties of nitride semiconductors, with advanced processing technologies and high frequency analysis and modeling. Through this interdisciplinary approach, which combines electrical engineering, materials science and semiconductor physics, this project will demonstrate new breakthroughs that will push the limits of high frequency electronic performance beyond the THz barrier. The broader impact of this work is to increase society's awareness of some of the most exciting new challenges in electrical engineering. This effort will be highly integrated with the proposed research through numerous outreach activities, including student education (with special emphasis on underrepresented students), development of teaching modules for K-12 education in collaboration with high school teachers, dissemination of research results through the internet and virtual labs, and collaboration with the electronics industry to transfer the proposed research to commercial applications.