Academic Collaborations

PQL have been working with the University of Cambridge for many years and have close ties with the Electrical Engineering division and more specifically, the Electronic Device and Materials research group, headed by Professor Andrew Flewitt.

Professor Flewitt and his research group have integrated the HiTUS technology into their research programme and have successfully incorporated various films into working electronic devices for a variety of applications.

For example,

  • HiTUS has been used to demonstrate the existence of a new phase of hafnium oxide, with a fully amorphous structure and a dielectric constant of over 30, something unheard of before its publication.
  • Very low-stress ZnO films have been deposited using HiTUS for applications in Acoustic Wave Sensors, allowing for biosensing devices to be deposited with extremely high sensitivity
  • HiTUS-deposited high-mobility cuprous oxide has been produced for use as an absorber layer in solar cells.

 

Publications utilising HiTUS include:

F.M. Li, R. Waddingham, W.I. Milne, A.J. Flewitt, S. Speakman, J. Dutson, S. Wakeham, M. Thwaites, Low temperature (< 100 °c) deposited P-type cuprous oxide thin films: Importance of controlled oxygen and deposition energy, Thin Solid Films. 520 (2011) 1278–1284. doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2011.04.192.

F.M. Li, B.C. Bayer, S. Hofmann, J.D. Dutson, S.J. Wakeham, M.J. Thwaites, W.I. Milne, A.J. Flewitt, High-k (k=30) amorphous hafnium oxide films from high rate room temperature deposition, Appl. Phys. Lett. 98 (2011) 1–4. doi:10.1063/1.3601487.

Y.Q. Fu, J.K. Luo, N.T. Nguyen, A.J. Walton, A.J. Flewitt, X.T. Zu, Y. Li, G. McHale, A. Matthews, E. Iborra, H. Du, W.I. Milne, Advances in piezoelectric thin films for acoustic biosensors, acoustofluidics and lab-on-chip applications, Prog. Mater. Sci. 89 (2017) 31–91. doi:10.1016/j.pmatsci.2017.04.006.

G. Rughoobur, M. Demiguel-Ramos, J.M. Escolano, E. Iborra, A.J. Flewitt, Gravimetric sensors operating at 1.1 GHz based on inclined c-axis ZnO grown on textured Al electrodes, Sci. Rep. 7 (2017) 1–9. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-01545-2.

K.M. Niang, B.C. Bayer, J.C. Meyer, A.J. Flewitt, Highly stable amorphous zinc tin oxynitride thin film transistors under positive bias stress, Appl. Phys. Lett. 111 (2017). doi:10.1063/1.5004514.

A.J. Flewitt, J.D. Dutson, P. Beecher, D. Paul, S.J. Wakeham, M.E. Vickers, C. Ducati, S.P. Speakman, W.I. Milne, M.J. Thwaites, Stability of thin film transistors incorporating a zinc oxide or indium zinc oxide channel deposited by a high rate sputtering process, Semicond. Sci. Technol. 24 (2009). doi:10.1088/0268-1242/24/8/085002.

Interested?

If you would like to discuss your trial requirements, obtain costing, turnaround times, or for any other questions, we would love to hear from you.