Kin Leong Pey

2D Materials

Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Email: peykinleong@sutd.edu.sg

Biography

   Kin-Leong PEY is currently the Associate Provost (Digital Technology), the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Chair Professor in Healthcare Engineering and full professor of the Engineering Product Development Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). Kin-Leong was appointed by the Singapore Ministry of Education as its founding Associate Provost to set up the SUTD undergraduate programme in 2010. With his pioneering effort, the design-centric undergraduate programme is now being ranked as the “Top Emerging Leader in Engineering Education” in the MIT benchmarking study on the global state of the art in engineering education(http://news.mit.edu/2018/reimagining-and-rethinking-engineering-education-0327). Full ABET equivalent accreditation was awarded by the Engineering Accreditation Board, Institute of Engineer, Singapore, in February 2017 and May 2022 for its 3 enginnerign degree programmes. Similary, the Master in architecture degree programme was fully dertfiied and recognized by Singapore Board of Architect in 2018. In Janruary 2022, he took on a new portfolio to work on a forward looking cyber-phsycial campus initiative in the Office of Digital Learning. Kin-Leong received his Bachelor of Engineering (1989) and Ph.D (1994) in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore. Previously, he held a Fellowship appointment in the Singapore-MIT Alliance and various research positions at the Institute of Microelectronics, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Agilent Technologies and National University of Singapore. Prior to joining SUTD, he was the Head of the Microelectronics Division, Director of the Nanyang NanoFabrication Center and Director of the Microelectronic Centre in the School of EEE at the Nanyang Technological University. Kin-Leong is a senior member of IEEE, a Fellow of the ASEAN Academy of Engineering & Technology and Institute of Engineer, Singapore. He was the General Chair of IEEE IPFA2001, Singapore and the co-General Chair of IPFA2004, Taiwan. Kin-Leong was the Guest Editor of IEEE Transactions on Devices and Materials Reliability in 2003-05 and 2007, and the Chair of the Singapore IEEE joint REL/CPMT/EDS Chapter in 2004-05, 09 and 2020-21. He has been an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Devices and Materials Reliability since 2009. Kin-Leong has published more than 253 international refereed publications, 257 technical papers at international meetings/conferences, 6 book chapters and holds 40 US patents. In addition, he has delivered 7 keynote speeches and 76 invited talks. Kin-Leong has contributed significantly to the CMOS gate dielectric reliability, specifically pioneering in the area of physical analysis for the study of ultra-thin dielectric breakdown mechanism. He was recognized by the IEEE International Integrated Reliability Workshop (IIRW) as one of the top 20 experts of the Front‐End device reliability (http://www.iirw.org/ref/reliabilityexperts.html) in 2018 and as a panelist of the Reliability Expert Forum (REF) of “Memory Technologies and Reliability” in 2019. Kin-Leong has graduated 35 PhD and more than 15 Master theses. Kin-Leong received a Singapore Public Administration Medal (Silver), National Day Awards in 2016 and serves on the Board of Governors, Temasek Polytechnics, the Advisory Board, School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Singapore Polytechnic, the Engineering Advisory Committee, Ngee Ann Polytechnic Council, and the Design Education Advisory Committee, Singapore.

Abstract for Presentation

New Insights on Physics of Degradation and Breakdown in 2D Dielectric Materials

   2D insulator-based materials are amongst the key drivers enabling the realization of next generation nanoelectronic devices in the future [1]. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and 2D mica have recently attracted a lot of attention [2,3]. In particular, h-BN emerges as one of the promising dielectric materials for the practical realization of graphene nanoelectronics. Mica is used as a substrate for various heterogeneous 2D material structures due to its excellent thermal stability, surface flatness, light transmittance and chemical resistance. Importantly, there is limited insight and conclusive evidence on the physics of degradation and breakdown (BD) in h-BN and Mica. In this invited talk, we highlight new findings on the mechanism of degradation and BD in h-BN and Mica dielectrics. Conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) technique is used to assess the nanoscale performance of the 2D dielectrics; local degradation due to dielectric wear-out and subsequent breakdown. Fig. 1(a) shows TEM micrograph of h-BN (~4nm) grown directly on polycrystalline Cu (~20 μm) using chemical vapour deposition method. Electrical measurements were performed on blanket sample using CAFM technique operating in ultra-high vacuum conditions. During all electrical measurements, bias was applied to the CAFM tip (Pt-Ir) while the Cu substrate was grounded (Fig. 1(b)). Figure 2 shows the typical I-V traces observed during the ramped voltage stressing (RVS) breakdown measurements at random locations of h-BN. It is important to note the considerable variability, most likely arising from the variation in breakdown susceptibility across different grains and grain boundaries in these h-BN sample. Constant voltage stressing (CVS) of h-BN indicates layer-by-layer BD behaviour (Fig. 3). Figs. 4 and 5 highlight the degradation behaviour of h-BN under soft BD (SBD) and formation of pit under hard BD (HBD) using CAFM topography and adhesion force analysis. Fig. 6 shows CAFM set-up used for BD analysis of Mica flakes. Localized electrical breakdown measurements and observation of swelling at the BD site on Mica flake is highlighted in Figs. 7(a) and (b). The average VBD and EBD values for Mica flakes of different thicknesses are plotted in Figure 7(c).

References

[1] K.S. Novoselov, et al., Science, 306 (2004) 666. 
[2] K.S. Novoselov, et al., Science, 353
(2016) aac9439. [3]. M.C. Lemme, et al., Nature Comms., 13 (2022) 1392. 
[4]. A. Ranjan, et al., IEEE IRPS, 13 (2018) 4A.1-1-4A.1-6. 
[5]. A. Ranjan, et al., IEEE EDL, 40 (2019) 1321. 
[6]. A. Maruvada, et al., (Unpublished).