Caltech Young Investigator Lecture

Group-III nitrides (AlN, GaN, and InN) are considered one of the most technologically important classes of materials since the discovery of silicon. They were key to the realization of efficient light emitters (visible and UV), robust high frequency power electronics and other disruptive technologies that now have become truly ubiquitous. In order to shape next generation technologies, innovative research must be undertaken to extend the properties of such materials beyond what is currently possible. This "extension" may be realized through extreme confinement of these materials in two-dimension, leading to massive changes in electronic bandstructure with as-yet unpredicted properties. To accomplish this, an alternative growth scheme was developed to realize two-dimensional forms of conventional bulk semiconductors, such as wide-bandgap 2D nitrides, utilizing the mechanism of adatom intercalation from the vapor phase in an MOCVD growth environment into the interfacial region of graphene formed on SiC. This synthesis process, referred to as "Migration Enhanced Encapsulated Growth" (MEEG)¹, establishes an entirely new platform to realize tunable optoelectronics that may frame next-generation technology.

¹Nature Materials 15, 1166–1171 (2016)

This lecture is part of the Young Investigators Lecture Series sponsored by the Caltech Division of Engineering & Applied Science.