Call for Papers

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

2021 will mark the 13^th year since the concept of ferroelectric negative capacitance was first proposed as a response to the challenges posed by the ever-increasing energy dissipation in electronics. Under certain conditions, a ferroelectric material can be stabilized in an otherwise unstable, high-energy state, leading to local negative capacitance behavior or a static local negative dielectric permittivity. This unusual behavior opens the possibility of overcoming the fundamental Boltzmann limit for power dissipation in field-effect transistors, and has become a vibrant field of research in condensed mater physics, materials science, and semiconductor devices. Despite the mounting evidence for negative capacitance behavior, which ranges from its manifestation in complex-oxide heterostructures with unusual polar textures to reports of steep-slope switching in ferroelectric field-effect transistors, there are still many unanswered questions, as researchers grapple to understand the fundamental physics of negative capacitance phenomena and their implications for the realization of more efficient devices. More than ever, there is a need for increased dialogue between researchers from the nanoscale ferroelectrics and semiconductor device communities in order to demystify some of the contentious issues surrounding negative capacitance and to establish a common language for further advancing negative capacitance technology. This symposium aims to provide a forum for interactions between physicists, materials scientists and engineers in academia and industry, addressing all aspects of ferroelectric negative capacitance, as well as broader topics in nanoscale ferroelectricity that are of relevance to thin-film ferroelectric devices.

Topics will include:

• Physics and origin of negative capacitance (stabilized negative capacitance, transient negative capacitance, negative differential capacitance)
• Materials of relevance for fundamental studies and applications of negative capacitance (fluorite-type binary oxides, perovskites, organic ferroelectrics, CMOS-compatible ferroelectrics)
• Epitaxial ferroelectric and dielectric heterostructures
• Electrical characterization of ferroelectric and dielectric thin films and heterostructures (dielectric response, switching)
• Static and dynamic properties of ferroelectric domains, domain walls and exotic polarization textures
• Microscopic and structural characterization (TEM/STEM, XRD etc.) of ferroelectric heterostructures and of negative capacitance
• Density functional theory calculations and phenomenological modeling of nanoscale ferroelectrics and of negative capacitance
• Negative capacitance field-effect transistors—theory, modeling and experimental demonstration
• Different device architectures (bulk and silicon-on-insulator, gate-all-around (GAA)/nanowire, nanosheet/nanotube FETs, FinFETs)
• Circuit- and system-level performance projections for negative capacitance field-effect transistors
• Negative capacitance in non-ferroelectric materials (piezoelectrics, 2D electron gases, interacting systems)
• Technological challenges—manufacturability, speed, reliability and variability
• Controversies, artefacts and alternative explanations of experimental observations

• A tutorial complementing this symposium is tentatively planned.

Invited Speakers:

• Robert Clark (TEL Technology Center, America, LLC, USA)
• Hiroshi Funakubo (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
• Marty Gregg (Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom)
• Alexei Gruverman (University of Nebraska–Lincoln, USA)
• Sumeet Gupta (Purdue University, USA)
• Daewon Ha (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Republic of Korea)
• Genquan Han (Xidian University, China)
• Michael Hoffmann (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Qianqian Huang (Peking University, China)
• Jorge Íñiguez (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Luxembourg)
• Adrian Ionescu (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Masaharu Kobayashi (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
• Daewoong Kwon (Inha University, Republic of Korea)
• Min-Hung Lee (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan)
• Igor Luk’yanchuk (University of Picardy Jules Verne, France)
• Beatriz Noheda (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
• Patrycja Paruch (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
• Ramamoorthy Ramesh (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Sayeef Salahuddin (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Florencio Sanchez (Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona, Spain)
• Bin Xu (Soochow University, China)
• Peide Ye (Purdue University, USA)

Symposium Organizers