Interview with Dr. Aaron Franklin

Featured Engineer

Dr. Aaron Franklin

Dr. Aaron Franklin - Research Staff Member at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

I work with nanomaterials to fabricate nanoelectronic devices, such as field-effect transistors, for future technologies. Working with nanoscale components means spending a lot of time with electron microscopes and material characterization equipment. My personal favorite is the scanning electron microscope (SEM) because my experience using the technique is sufficient to enable fast-turnaround even when imaging components such as carbon nanotubes, which are only a single atomic layer thick and approximately one nanometer in diameter (10 atoms across!).

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

I don’t spend too terribly much time with software, but I have really come to enjoy Google Sketchup (free version). I’ve done everything from a full CAD design of an electron beam evaporator that I built to simple schematics for devices that I am fabricating.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

It has been my experience that the problems that appear to be the trickiest often turn out to be the ones with the simplest solution. For instance, during my PhD work we ran into an issue with the electrochemical process we were using to create porous aluminum oxide templates. After weeks of troubleshooting the ‘most probable’ causes for the process failure, we finally decided to try using new copper tape, which connects the chip to an alligator clip-style electrode. While it seemed improbable for the simple copper tape we’d been using to expire, it proved to be an incontestable fix. From this, and many similar experiences, I have learned to try the simple things first when resolving tricky challenges in the lab.

What is on your bookshelf?

Everything from “Quantum Mechanics” by Griffiths to “Modern VLSI Devices” by Taur and Ning. A better question would be, “which books on your shelf do more than just decorate your office?” The answer to that would be “Semiconductor Material and Device Characterization” by Schroder, “Physics of Semiconductor Devices” by Sze, and “Quantum Transport” by Datta. Each of these books is littered with sticky note markers.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve? (special way to analyze circuits, special process you use to make something, etc.)

In my area, any number of conditions can affect the performance of devices. Therefore, I have found it imperative when trying a new experiment to begin step one with several chips that are processed in parallel. This redundancy, while time consuming, has proven to enable a very high level of efficiency in my experimental work. By strategically leaving the companion samples at certain steps of the process, they can serve as quick work-arounds when the leading chip fails. I’m not sure about anyone else, but things don’t typically work for me the first time!

What has been your favorite project?

Speaking of things working the first time—one of my favorite projects is the one that actually did! An idea came to me on a Friday for a technique of achieving nanoparticle decoration of different metals to selective regions of a substrate. I had one chip already available to try the idea out and sped through the processing the following week. By the next Wednesday, the results (precisely as I had anticipated them) were staring me in the face. I wrote the paper Thursday and submitted it Friday, just one week following the inception of the idea. That was a 1/1000 type of experience for me to be sure.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences? (blowing up things, getting shocked, etc.)

Hmmm . . . we played with liquid nitrogen a lot back in grad school (which is really fun), but outside of that I try and avoid such experiences!

What are you currently working on?

I currently am working on integrating carbon nanomaterials (nanotubes and graphene) into transistors that can provide a unique performance advantage over standard silicon technology. For instance, carbon nanotubes allow for transistors to be scaled down to even smaller dimensions than silicon, without incurring the deleterious impact of high static power dissipation. Furthermore, both nanotubes and graphene can be used in transparent and/or flexible substrate applications—opening the capability for some very new and exciting electronic device applications.