Anne Itsuno, PhD student in electrical engineering, received the 2011 William E. Spicer – Thomas N. Casselman Award for Best Student Paper at this year's U.S. Workshop on the Physics and Chemistry of II-VI Materials (II-VI Workshop) for her paper titled, "MBE Grown Single Element HgCdTe nBn Infrared Detectors,” co-authored by her advisor, Prof. Jamie Phillips and Dr. Silviu Velicu, EPIR Technologies, Inc.
According to Itsuno:
My research focuses on HgCdTe-based semiconductor infrared photodetectors with applications in high performance thermal imaging and detection. Over the past year, I've pursued an in-depth theoretical and experimental investigation on the unipolar HgCdTe nBn detector, which has the potential to replace or supplement the conventional HgCdTe p-n junction photodetector technology.
I recently fabricated and tested successful prototypes, resulting in the first demonstration of a molecular beam epitaxy grown II-VI compound semiconductor nBn detector. My results show that with further optimization, the HgCdTe nBn detector has the potential to serve as a stand-alone device in infrared focal plane arrays as well as to provide a stepping stone for moving forward with more complex, barrier-integrated HgCdTe devices.
Having received much positive response from the HgCdTe research community, Itsuno is very excited about the direction in which this research is headed.
The work was done in collaboration with EPIR Technologies, a photovoltaic technology R&D company located in Bolingbrook, IL.
The William E. Spicer – Thomas N. Casselman Award for Best Student Paper is awarded by the U.S. Workshop on the Physics and Chemistry of II-VI Materials Committee and commemorates the memories of William E. Spicer and Thomas N. Casselman. Spicer and Casselman founded the Workshop in 1981. The Award is issued annually to the best student paper from the Workshop.
Posted: October 12, 2011 by
EECS/ECE Communications Coordinator
email@example.com or 734-936-2965