A new junior research group led by Dr. Saskia Schimmel has been established at the Department of Electrical Engineering at FAU as part of the Emmy Noether program run by the German Research Foundation (DFG). A total of 1,320,000 euros has been approved for the first three year funding period, and a total of 550,000 euros plus project lump sums have been earmarked for the second funding period, also lasting three years.
Electronic components are already crucial to modern society, and their importance is steadily increasing thanks to current trends such as digitalization, the rapidly increasing use of CPU-intensive numeric models (see artificial intelligence) and the transformation in the transportation and energy sectors (electrical vehicle, renewable energies).
As electronic components are used in so many different areas, and as we have to find new ways to save energy to cut CO2 emissions and improve our energy sovereignty, developing electronic components with improved energy efficiency is a research goal that is of growing importance for the economy and society as a whole.
More about Dr. Saskia Schimmel
Before returning to Germany, Dr. Saskia Schimmel won a scholarship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and spent 2 years conducting research at Nagoya University in the laboratory of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Prof. Hiroshi Amano. Her return to FAU was funded with a Feodor Lynen Return Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She then changed within FAU from the Chair of Materials in Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) to the Chair of Electronic Components (LEB), where she has now been approved for the much sought-after Emmy Noether funding. The Chair of Electronic Components (LEB) has been led by Prof. Dr. Jörg Schulze since September 2021, and focuses on applied research in the areas of the technology and manufacture of electronic components.
While the physical boundaries of the most well-established semi-conductor material, silicon, have already been pushed almost to their limits, new materials still have major potential in this area, in particular those known as wide band-gap semiconductors. That is the focus of the project which has now had funding approved. Its key objectives are to develop selected innovative nitride semi-conductors and to gain a deeper understanding of the manufacturing process using ammonothermal synthesis. "The selected nitrides represent wide band-gap semiconductors of the type required for energy-efficient power electronics in electrical vehicles, for example," explains Sr. Saskia Schimmel. Nitrides are a class of materials that include an especially high number of materials that have not yet been researched in detail, and they display a wide spectrum of physical properties. The materials investigated within the project are potentially combinable, thereby creating new opportunities for creating components. "In addition, we are lucky to have the use of ammonothermal synthesis, a technology for synthesizing nitrides that is only available at a few selected locations," Dr. Saskia Schimmel continues. A further unique feature of the project involves the measuring methods used to observe relevant chemical and physical processes in situ, developed in a previous project at FAU (the DFG research unit in chemistry and technology of the ammonothermal synthesis of nitrides).
"With my research, I hope to contribute to inventing innovative and more energy-efficient electronic components and to drive forward fundamental research into the synthesis and properties of semi-conducting nitrides," summarizes Dr. Saskia Schimmel. She adds, "At the same time, I would like to offer the members of my working group a suitable environment where they can benefit from the strongly interdisciplinary work aimed at achieving our project objectives to develop further on both a professional and a personal level."
DFG's Emmy Noether program
The Emmy Noether program run by the German Research Foundation (DFG) is intended to give outstanding researchers the opportunity of meeting the requirements for being appointed as a university lecturer by leading a junior research group and fulfilling specific teaching tasks. In order to be eligible for funding, the researchers must have two years experience as a postdoctoral researcher and have gathered experience researching abroad.
