Aluminum Scandium Nitride Thin Films and Microdevices for Next Generation Nonvolatile Memory, Radio Frequency Filters, and Magnetoelectric Sensors

Abstract: Aluminum Nitride (AlN) is a well-established thin film piezoelectric material. AlN bulk acoustic wave (BAW) radio frequency (RF) filters were one of the key innovations that enabled the 3G and 4G smart phone revolution.  Recently, the substitutional doping of scandium (Sc) for aluminum (Al) to form aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN) has been studied to significantly enhance the piezoelectric properties and to introduce ferroelectric properties into AlN based material systems. The properties achieved have profound implications for the performance of future 5G and 6G RF filters, piezoelectric sensors, piezoelectric energy harvesters, and for scaling the bit density of ferroelectric nonvolatile memories (NMV). This talk will present on the synthesis of highly Sc alloyed AlScN materials of the thickness (5 nm to 1000 nm), stress, and crystallinity required for applications in NVM and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The material properties and device performance achieved will be reported and placed in the context of device specific figures-of-merit. Exemplar AlScN based memory, RF, and magnetoelectric sensor devices will be presented and discussed in the context of alternative technologies.

Bio: Roy (Troy) H. Olsson III is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include materials, devices, and architectures for low-power processing of wireless, sensor, and biological signals. Prior to joining Penn, Troy was a Program Manager in the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), where he led multiple programs in the areas of low energy sensing and communications.  From 2004 to 2014, Troy was a Principal Electronics Engineer in the MEMS Technologies Department at Sandia National Laboratories where he established research efforts in piezoelectric microdevices for processing of RF, inertial and optical signals.  He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2004.  His graduate research was in the areas of low-power electronics and sensor arrays for interfacing with the central nervous systems.  Troy has authored more than 100 technical journal and conference papers and holds 32 patents in the areas of microelectronics and microsystems.  He was awarded an R&D100 award in 2011 for his work on Microresonator Filters and Frequency References, was named the 2017 DARPA program manager of the year, was the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2019, was the general chair of the 2022 PiezoMEMS workshop. Troy was awarded the 2022 Bell Labs Prize for his work on Memory Enhanced Computing with III-Nitride Ferrodiodes.