Dr. Debdeep Jena Dr. Debdeep Jena is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. During his research career, he has received the International MBE Young Scientist award in 2014, the IBM faculty award in 2012, the ISCS Young Scientist award in 2012, the most valuable contribution awards at the Workshop for Compound Semiconductor Materials and Devices (WOCSEMMAD) in 2014, 2010 and 2008, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award in 2006, a best student paper award at the Electronic Materials Conference in 2002, and a young author best paper award from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in 2000. His research and teaching interests are in the MBE growth and device applications of quantum semiconductor heterostructures (III-V nitride and oxide semiconductors), investigation of charge transport in nanostructured semiconducting materials such as graphene, 2D crystals, nanowires and nanocrystals, and in the theory of charge, heat, and spin transport in nanomaterials. He has authored more than 180 scientific publications including articles in Science, Nature Journals, Physical Review Letters, Electron Device Letters, and Applied Physics Letters.
I will discuss our group’s efforts towards realizing transistor switches that beat the Boltzmann limit using unconventional materials in the source, gate and channel of a FET. I will discuss the progress towards interlayer tunnel-FETs with 2D crystal semiconductors. I will present the two-fold effect of spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization in the gate of GaN heterostructure FET, where negative differential capacitance can be obtained, and discuss its effect on the transistor performance. The polarization field can be used in the tunnel-junction channel itself, to create a broken-gap GaN/InN/GaN tunnel-FET. I will present the idea, and experimental progress towards the realization of this device. I will also show how a GaN heterostructure FET shows sub-threshold slopes as low as ~10 mV/decade with ~12 orders on/off ratio, and ~ 0.5 mA/um on current when loaded with phase change materials due to current-driven metal-insulator transitions.