October 2011

Page 1

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology at Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

BEACON

October 2011 / Dhul-Qi'dah 1432 Volume 2, Issue No.2

the

KAUST WElcomes prince Faisal and international scouts

www.kaust.edu.sa

New Red Sea Research Center Director

Shell (outer) gate contact

Drain Core(inner) Contact gate contact

Source Contact

Director of the Red Sea Research Center (RSRC), Professor Xabier Irigoien, has an adventurousness typical of the Basque region where he was raised and where his studies began. From Spain, he went to France and

Interlayer dielectric (ILD)

the UK, where he worked at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Southampton

Drain

Top Insulator

Oceanography Center. He returned to his homeland in 2002 and became Head of the Pelagic Fisheries and Biological Oceanography at AZTITecnalia in Pasaia, a

Channel

Gate Metal

technological center specializing in Marine RED SEA | Continued on p.2

Source Bottom Insulator

Silicon Substrate

Professor Xabier Irigoien

Gate dielectric

Figure 1: Architecture of the silicon nanotube transistor. For the first time an inside (core) gate has been included and the concept of a silicon nanotube transistor has been introduced.

student designs innovative nano-scaled transistor .‫طالب جامعة امللك عبداهلل يصممون جهاز ترانزستور مبتكر باستخدام تقنية النانو‬ Hossain Fahad, a first year PhD student in the Electrical Engineering program, has challenged previous examples of silicon nanowire transistor technology with his novel device concept. A recent paper in the high impact, American Chemical Society publication, Nano Letters, describes his research — undertaken at a small desk at KAUST without any collaborators. The new compact device promises both performance and area-efficiency and has a US patent application pending. Transistors constitute a vital component in myriad modern electronic devices including computers, cell phones, televisions, and GPS systems: the on-off switch that governs their very heart. The transistor industry has been expanding for the last three decades and constitutes a business with a turnover exceeding $300 billion/year. As the demand for ever-smaller machines accelerates (laptops that can be rolled up and put in a pocket are on the horizon), the need for nano-scale transistors has escalated. However, as the size of transistors has shrunk and computational speeds have increased, dissipated heat has become a major challenge, particularly with the addition of diverse functions to established devices such as cameras in cell phones. There is a well

Student Jhonathan Rojas, Dr. Casey Smith, and Professor Muhammad Hussein

established nano-scale semi-conductor research niche but much is technologically unproven. The

discuss transistor technology.

nanowire-based transistors that do reduce heat dissipation and provide higher computation speed require many nanowire transistors costing more physical space to satisfy today’s demands. The

Professor Muhammad Mustafa Hussain is part of KAUST’s founding faculty and advisor to

work described in this paper seeks to address the challenge associated with making a transistor,

the student authors on the paper: Hossain Fahad and Jhonathan Rojas. He brings the benefit of

which can provide faster computation with more functionality beyond computation in a much

his experience both in academia and industry to his position as Assistant Professor in Electrical

smaller portable device.

Engineering, beginning his Advanced Nanofabrication (EE 203) teaching in a “virtual” lab. In his NANO-SCALED | Continued on p.2

INSIDE:

News 1-2

SEDCO 3

News 4-5

Research 6–7

Community 8


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