ELECTRONIC
METAMATERIALS
& DEVICES
GROUP
Manipulating Ferroelectric Materials
Towards Sustainable Microelectronics
ABOUT US
Suraj Cheema is starting as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in 2024.
GOAL
Addressing Grand Challenges in Energy Consumption-Storage-Generation for Sustainable Microelectronics
We aim to address energy grand challenges - particularly the exponential rise in global energy consumption from computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices -
from a microelectronics perspective, harnessing collective electronic phenomena, engineered at the unit cell level.
Towards making an impact on technology, our research focuses on manipulating novel-yet-simple CMOS materials towards lab-to-fab translation of electronic devices that demonstrate unprecedented performance.
More Moore
Energy demand from computing has been increasing much faster than the world's energy production; at this rate, in 20 years, computing will require more electricity than the world can generate; novel energy-efficient computing paradigms are required
More than Moore
The exponential rise of IoT smart devices (approaching 1 trillion) and energy/heat dissipation in modern microchips demand innovations in self-powered nanotechnologies - spanning rechargeable energy storage, energy harvesting, & power delivery - integrated on-chip
Sustainable Microelectronics
3D integration of energy-efficient electronics (computing, memory, AI hardware), energy technologies (energy storage + harvesting, thermal management, power delivery) & sensors on-chip for autonomous data processing i.e. from Cloud to Edge Intelligence
energy-efficient electronics
exploiting collective electronic phenomena
energy-autonomous electronics
ubiquitous self-powered smart devices
edge electronics
3D-integrated compute+storage+energy+sensing micro-AI-engines
Lab-to-Fab
Translate microelectronics hardware discoveries to government & commercial semiconductor foundries
next-generation electronics
from experimental university research to wafer-scale production
APPROACH
Designing Emergent (Negative) Electronic Phenomena in Atomically-Engineered Composite Materials & Integration into CMOS Technology
We are an interdisciplinary group at the intersection of materials science, condensed matter physics, and nanoelectronics to realize the applied impact of electronic metamaterials.
Rather than exploring the entire periodic table, we focus on manipulating simple materials in today's mass production microelectronics to accelerate the technological adoption of novel electronic devices.
In particular, we engineer multifunctional ferroelectric properties in the HfO2-ZrO2 model system, the dielectric used in today's state-of-the-art microelectronics, to address Edge Intelligence building blocks.
Materials Science
atomic-scale engineering
Inversion symmetry breaking & phase transitions
Atomic-layer thin films, superlattices, metastable polymorphs
Condensed Matter
emergent (negative) electronic phenomena
Building blocks: collective electronic order, phase transitions
Negative responses: capacitance, piezoelectricity, compressibility
Nanoelectronics
on-chip computing & energy technologies
Computing: logic transistors, nonvolatile memory, AI hardware
Energy: energy storage & harvesting capacitors, power delivery
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Harnessing FerroElectronics at the Atomic Scale
Re-imagining the resistor
from defective (ionic) to collective (ferroic) electronic order
for atomic-scale resistive switching
Cheema et al Nature 2020 | Cheema et al Science 2022
Lab-to-Fab
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) confirmation of ultrathin ferroelectricity in HfO2-ZrO2 on Si
Re-imaginging the transistor
from high-k dielectric to negative-k ferroelectric gate stacks
for ultralow power transistor operation
Cheema et al Nature 2022
Lab-to-Fab
U.S. R&D Foundry confirmation & integration of my NC gate stack into their Defense Foundry transistor technology: IEDM 2022
Samsung Electronics and SAIT confirmation & integration of my NC gate stack into their FinFET technology: Nature Electronics 2023
Intel highlighted my NC technology as a future for energy-efficient computing in their 75th anniversary of the transistor: Science 2022
Re-imagining the capacitor
from electrochemical to electrostatic energy storage
for ultrahigh-density ultrafast-charging capacitors
Cheema et al Nature 2024
Lab-to-Fab
U.S. R&D Foundry confirmation & integration of my NC energy storage stack into their 3D trench capacitor process: Nature 2024
The Pentagon invitation to present this energy storage technology to US military decision-makers at the Pentagon DARPA Demo Day 2023
RESEARCH AREAS
New Paradigms for Electronic Materials & Devices
Materials Design
Electronic Metamaterials for Microelectronics
(i) Unprecedented electronic properties via negative electronic phenomena (e.g. negative capacitance) stabilized in composite systems with collective electronic order (e.g. ferroelectricity)
(ii) Accelerated Lab-to-Fab translation by stabilizing such novel phenomena in CMOS-compatible materials
Computing & Memory
More Moore: Energy-Efficient Electronics
(i) From high-k dielectrics to negative-k ferroelectrics for advanced logic transistors
(ii) From defective (ionic) to collective (ferroic) phenomena for energy-efficient and area-efficient nonvolatile memory and analog artificial intelligence (AI) hardware
Energy & Power
More than Moore: Energy-Autonomous Electronics
(i) From electrochemical to electrostatic energy storage for on-chip ultracapacitors and power delivery
(ii) From thermoelectric to pyroelectric thermal-energy conversion for on-chip energy harvesting and thermal management
TOOLBOX
Atoms to Devices
Materials-by-Design Synthesis
To stabilize emergent phenomena beyond the standard unit cell, we utilize Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) to manufacture hierarchical “super-cells”. ALD, used in today's microelectronics, deposits atomically-precise films across large-area substrates to enable large-scale integration and facilitate Lab-to-Fab translation.
Thin Film Characterization
To understand the microscopic origins underlying electronic metamaterials, we employ (i) synchrotron x-rays (diffraction, spectroscopy, microscopy), (ii) microscopy (electron, scanning probe), and (iii) transport (ultrafast, cryogenic, etc) at National Laboratories, MIT facilities, and in-house setups.
Electronic Devices
To realize enhanced performance derived from emergent symmetry-broken phenomena, we integrate electronic metamaterials into relevant device structures (e.g. capacitors, transistors) fabricated (i) in-house at MIT.nano (ii) next-door at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and (iii) in collaboration with semiconductor industries.
