Lionel C. Kimerling

Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering 
Director, Materials Processing Center

SB Metallurgy, MIT, 1965
PhD Metallurgy, MIT, 1969

Room 13-4118, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA  02139
617-253-5383 (phone) 617-253-6782 (fax)
lckim@mit.edu
Electronic Materials Research Group 
Prof. Kimerling's Home Page

Prof. Kimerling's research activities address the fundamental science of imperfection in solids and the processing of electronic materials. All his programs include an emphasis on both materials science and applications. His MIT research on silicon processing has addressed photovoltaic cells environmentally benign integrated circuit manufacturing. Among the achievements of this research are the creation of a process simulator for wafer contamination gettering; development of a new ultrasensitive measurement for silicon surface perfection; the discovery of a surface passivation method for the reduction of cleaning steps in manufacturing; and the development of in-situ diagnostic tools for wet chemical process control. His group’s Microphotonics research has produced a series of first ever achievements with the goal of monolithic integration of optical interconnection with integrated microelectronic circuit chips. The research has developed submicron dimensioned optical structures by emp[oying materials systems with high refractive index contrast for confining light. His research results in this area include the optoelectronic physics and materials processing of rare earth-doped semiconductors culminating in the first room temperature operational, erbium-doped silicon light emitting diode; the monolithic integration of MOSFET driver circuitry with Si:Er LEDs and Si/SiO₂ waveguides; the process development silicon optical waveguides to yield low loss microphotonic signal distribution; the fabrication and demonstration of the first waveguide-integrated microcavity resonators based on photonic crystal designs at a wavelength of 1.54 microns; the fabrication and demonstration of optical add/drop microphotonic circuits for high capacity WDM data distribution based on microring resonator filter junctions; and the process development and testing of high performance, heteroepitaxial Ge-on-Si photodetectors for microphotonic applications.

Selected Publications

"Germanium Photodetectors for Silicon Microphotonics," MRS Symposium Proceedings, 637 E5.6.1 (2001) (with others).

"Correlation Between Leakage Current Density and Threading Dislocation Density in SiGe p-i-n Diodes Grown on Relaxed Graded Buffer Layers," Applied Physics Letters 78 (4) 541 (2001) (with others).

"High Performance p-I-n Si Photodetectors for the Near Infrared: From Model to Demonstration," IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 48 (6) 1092 (2001) (with others).

"Iron-Acceptor Pairs in Silicon: Structure and Formation Processes," Journal of Applied Physics, 90 (6) 2744 (2001) (with others).

"Effect of Crystallization on Photoluminescence of Er₂O₃ Thin Films," MRS Symposium Proceedings, 694 (2001) (with others).

"Surface Smoothing of Polycrystalline Si Waveguides with Gas-Cluster Ion Beams," MRS Symposium Proceedings, 597 51 (2001) (with others).

"Etching and Surface Smoothing with Gas-Cluster Ion Beams," MRS Symposium Proceedings, 585 27 (2001) (with others).

"Microphotonics: The Next Platform for the Information Age," Proceedings of Commemorative International Symposium: New Frontier of Electronic Materials and Devices, Osaka Electro-Communication University, Osaka, Japan, 1/2 23 (2001).

"Fabrication of Ultralow-Loss Si/SiO₂ Waveguides by Roughness Reduction," Optics Letters, 26 (23) 1888 (2001) (with others).

"Observation of Two Coupled Defect Levels on the Hydrogen-Passivated Si (100) Surface,"  Physica B  308-310 228-231 (2001) (with others).

Teaching Involvements

Spring 2007 3.46 Photonic Materials and Devices

Professor Kimerling and Anurdha Murthy Agarwal are recipients of a 2005 Deshpande Center grant for researching low-cost multispectral infrared detector arrays.