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John Robertson answers a
few questions about this month's fast breaking paper in
the field of Physics.
From
•>>August 2006
Field:
Physics
Article Title: High dielectric constant oxides
Authors: Robertson, J
Journal: EUR PHYS J-APPL PHYS
Volume: 28
Issue: 3
Page: 265-291
Year: DEC 2004
* Univ Cambridge, Dept Engn, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England.
* Univ Cambridge, Dept Engn, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, England.
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 Why
do you think your paper is highly cited?
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“The review article deals with how we are improving the electrical properties and materials science of these oxides so that they can be used.”
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The paper deals with high-k oxides for Si transistors. This is
a critical new issue for the semiconductor industry. There is one
major review for this subject, published when the field was quite
new—"High-kappa gate dielectrics: Current status and
materials properties considerations" by G. D. Wilk, R. M.
Wallace, and J.M. Anthony, Journal of Applied Physics 89
(10): 5243-5275, May15, 2001—which has received over 1,000
citations. This is still the most cited paper in the area, but it
is now getting a bit old, and the objective of my paper is to
present a more recent review.
Could
you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?
The semiconductor industry is a huge, worldwide industry. The
complementary metal oxide Si (CMOS) transistor has generally
improved its performance by a factor of 1.5 to 2 each year.
However, it is now reaching performance limits which are partly
to do with introducing new materials.
A key component of the transistor is the "gate
oxide" which is presently silicon dioxide-based, but it
needs to be replaced by another oxide of higher dielectric
constant (high-k), to keep power dissipation within limits.
The high-k oxides initially had rather poor electrical
properties, and very little was known about them. But they were
urgently needed within a five-to-six-year time frame. The review
article deals with how we are improving the electrical
properties and materials science of these oxides so that they
can be used.
How
did you become involved in this research, and were any problems
encountered along the way?
I do much of the theory of electronic structure which
underpins our understanding and development of these materials.
As the theory should be closely related to experiment, this
forces me to have a good working knowledge of both the
experimental situation, as well as the theoretical part.
View
John Robertson
's
record in ISIHighlyCited.com.
John Robertson, Ph.D.
Professor of Electronics
University of Cambridge
Engineering Department
Cambridge, UK
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ESI Special Topics,
August 2006
Citing URL - http://www.esi-topics.com/fbp/2006/august06-JohnRobertson.html
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