WELCOME!
Welcome to the Irene Group home page at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Our group members have diverse educational backgrounds and nationalities, but we all come together to solve problems in microelectronics, material science, and nanostuff.
Research Synopsis
Our research is concerned with reactions at semiconductor surfaces that lead to electronically relevant film-semiconductor interfaces and with the materials and electronic characterization of those films and interfaces. The main objective is to understand the relationships between materials and electronics properties.
Our research in the field of microelectronics materials is concerned primarily with properties and reactions at semiconductor surfaces and film-semiconductor interfaces. Our focus is on technologically relevant issues from the area of microelectronics that require scientific understanding, and we organize research projects around those issues. Among the semiconductor surfaces that are presently under investigation are: Si, Ge, InP, GaAs, GaN SiC. Both film growth (surface oxidation and nitridation) and chemical vapor deposition reactions are studied.
Particular electronic relevance lies with the formation and properties of dielectric films such as oxides and nitrides on semiconductor surfaces. Both the film formation processes and film and interface properties are determined, in order to elucidate the relationships between materials and electronic properties. Among the emphasized materials issues are film nucleation and growth dynamics, film structure and morphology, materials properties as well as the electronic properties of the resulting interfaces.
In addition,wWe are also exploring complex oxides, High temperature semiconductors, and high K dielectrics. StO, HfO2, ZrO2 and MgO. Finally, we are investigating the fabrication of organic thin film transistors (OTFT) along with the optical and electronic properties of organic semiconducting, dielectric, and ferroelectric films.