We are delighted to announce that the HREELM project is one of this year’s laureats of the SESAME 2024 call, supported by the Ile-de-France region

The aim

Imaging for the first time the surface vibrational states with nanometric spatial resolution

This will be done by full filed imaging of loss energy electron energy losses in real and reciprocal space at high spatial (15 nm) spectral (5 meV) and wave-vector (40 cm^-1) resolutions.

More information can be found in the project section !

Santiago defended his PhD and answered brillantly the jury members questions (from left to right : Jérôme Wolfman, Eugénie Martinez, Maria Christine Richter, Mathieu Frégneaux, Nick Barrett and Bruno Domenichini)

Once again, congratulations !

Dr. Kale Somnath Dadabhau completed his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Berhampur, India, where his research focused on investigating the effects of size and boundary conditions in ferroelectric thin films and tunnel junctions. Before his doctoral studies, he earned a Master’s degree in Physics from the Department of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, India. Dr. Kale previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at IISER Berhampur, where he focused on multiferroic tunnel junctions for next-generation non-volatile memories. His research interests include Material science, nanoelectronics, and the application of thin films in memory devices and energy-efficient technologies. He has received several awards, including the IEEE and SERB Travel Awards, as well as the Sanjay Shewale Prize for academic excellence.

He has recently joined LENSIS as a postdoctoral researcher to work on the project Ferro4EdgeAI, “Scalable Ferroelectric-Based Accelerators for Energy Efficient Edge AI.” This project focuses on developing ultra-low-power, scalable edge accelerators for artificial intelligence, incorporating a memory-augmented neural network based on low-cost, high-density, multi-level, Back End of Line (BEoL) integrated ferroelectric (FE) technology. The project is conducted in collaboration with Horizon Europe CL4, Leti, NaMLab, INL, TU Delft, STMicroelectronics, FMC, and SynSense.

“During my poster presentation on "Polarization Dependent Oxygen Vacancy Distribution in Ferroelectric Hf₀.₅Zr₀.₅O₂ Capacitors," I engaged in meaningful discussions with notable experts in the field, including Prof. Hwang, Prof. Jeon and Dr. Mueller. Key questions arose during these interactions: Prof. Datta inquired about the mechanisms behind oxygen vacancy migration under varying polarization conditions, which led me to explain the influence of built-in electric fields.  I gained valuable insights into several fundamental physics concepts. I learned about the dynamics of oxygen vacancies, revealing how their migration affects device reliability and functionality. I explored energy barriers associated with vacancy movement and the significant role of built-in electric fields in shaping vacancy distribution. This understanding highlighted the challenges related to wake-up and fatigue effects in ferroelectric devices. Additionally, discussions on optimizing HZO materials reinforced the importance of precise fabrication techniques and their implications for next-generation memory technologies.” (Dr. Gunjan Yadav)

We want to acknowledge the PEPR Diadem MicroElec project for the funding.

Successful HAXPES beamtime for Gunjan Yadav’s project on the BL09XU beamline of the Spring-8 synchrotron in Japan. Many thanks to Akira Yasui, Seo Okkyun, Jiagi Tang and Ibrahima Gueye for their help and support! Hopefully we have some nice results on the oxygen vacancy depth profiles in 6 nm HZO capacitors made in CEA/LETI and cycled at different voltages.

Work supported by the MicroElec project of the PEPR Diadem and by the Horizon Europe Ferro4EdgeAI.

Here Gunjan, Ibrahima and Seo in front of the wide angle HAXPES analyzer.

Eunjin Koh just recently joined the LENSIS. She studied physics for bachelor and material engineering for master, in Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon, South Korea. She is going to investigate hafnium based thin films using XPS.

Her thesis is funded by the Horizon Europe project Ferro4EdgeAI (https://www.ferro4edgeai.eu/)

Luis Azevedo Antunes earned his bachelor’s degree in Physical Engineering and a master’s degree in Micro- and Nanotechnology from the Munich University of Applied Sciences. During his master’s program, he spent a semester abroad at Clemson University in the USA. He received the Georg-Simon-Ohm Award for his master’s thesis titled “The Effects of Oxygen Defects on the Formation of the Ferroelectric Phase in Doped HfO2, Based on Density Functional Calculations.”, providing the motivation to pursue a Ph.D. in the same field. He is part of the team which secured second place at the Merck Innovation Cup for their work on neuro-inspired AI inference acceleration.

 Luis has recently joined LENSIS as an external collaborator from the Munich University of Applied Sciences, a project partner of the D3PO initiative, “Dopant and Defect Physics for Device Optimization in Hafnium Oxide-based Devices.” This bilateral ANR-DFG project is in collaboration with CEA/LETI (Grenoble) and NaMLab (Dresden).

We are happy to announce that our work have been recently published on Applied Physics Letters. This article is entitled “Oxygen vacancy engineering in Si-doped, HfO2 ferroelectric capacitors using Ti oxygen scavenging layers”.

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0205142