Gautham Rangasamy makes transistors 4x better
2023-11-27
Gautham Rangasamy. Photo: Marcus Sandberg.
Title of thesis: Vertical III-V Nanowire Tunnel Field-Effect Transistors: A Circuit Perspective.
Link to thesis in LU Research Portal:
Defence: Friday December 15th, 09:15, Lecture Hall E:B, building E..
Describe your research in a popular science way
The convenience and improvement in quality of our daily life is enabled by terabytes in data storage, data processing and data communication enabled by trillions of transistors, consuming terawatt-hours of electricity. With the emergence of new fields in AI, Neuromorphic Computing, Quantum Computing, Internet of Things, to name a few, we can be rest assured of further increase in electronic systems in our daily life. This puts us in an fascinating time, quasi - science fiction even, as we speculate on the enormous potential these fields would bring. The caveat, of course, is the increase in the data produced and the accompanying energy consumption. As all the electronics system are made with a basic building block called transistors, one way of mitigating the increasing power consumption is by making them more efficient. My thesis work explores this possibility by using quantum tunneling based transistors. I am happy to report that we were able to achieve record performance transistors enabling more energy efficient systems.
Please complement with a relevant, or your favorite, graph/illustration (that is ok to publish from an IPR perspective) together with a caption of 10-30 words.
Top view of the fabricated tunnel field-effect transistor. We were able to increase the current by 400% compared to state-of-the-art devices.
What made you want to pursue a PhD?
It might be a cliché, but I just wanted to make the world a bit better and maybe also make myself a bit better person in the process. I figure I did manage that in the end thanks to my supervisors, my colleagues and above all, my students.
What is the most fascinating or interesting with your thesis subject?
I work with different materials systems, trying to optimize their composition for the best transistor performance. It was akin to playing hide-and-seek at a nanometre scale and overall a fascinating puzzle to solve!
Do you believe some results from your research will be applied in practice eventually? And if so, how / how?
I believe breaching the threshold of 1 µA/µm current with SS < 60 mV/dec is the most important result of my thesis work. As an optimist, I feel this would find applications in low power electronics!
What are your plans?
After my PhD, I'm heading to Germany to join a startup. We're working on making quantum computers happen!