Dr. Afaq Piracha is a Research Associate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University. Dr. Piracha completed his PhD in single crystal diamond membranes for nanophotonics and nanomechanics from University of Melbourne, Australia. Before joining MSU, he did postdoc fellowships at Harvard University in diamond nanophotonic quantum devices and diamond on GaN for heat spreaders at University of Bristol, UK. Recently, Dr. Piracha joined ULTRA team to work on high quality CVD growth of doped and undoped diamond for high power electrical applications.
Matthias Muehle studied physics at TU Dresden in Germany, where he did his thesis research at Fraunhofer USA, CCL located at Michigan State University (MSU). He continued to do his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at MSU researching wafer scaling of single crystalline diamond. He is the Manager Diamond Technologies at Fraunhofer USA, CMW and he is also an Adjunct Professor in Electrical Engineering at MSU. His group is researching diamond materials synthesis and device applications, including power electronics, neurological sensors and water treatment. His personal research focus is in diamond growth for WBG integration.
Reza Vatanmeidanshahi received M.S. degrees in Material Chemistry and Physical Chemistry from Sharif University of Technology, Iran in 2011 and from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2014, respectively and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from ASU in 2019. Reza is currently a Postdoc student in Professor Goodnick's lab at ASU. Reza has passion to simulate and model semi-classical charge transport in semiconductors, for device application, in different length scales by means of density functional theory, molecular dynamics, Monte-Carlo algorithms, machine learning method and classical physical models. In ULTRA, Reza focuses on implementing new algorithms into in-house full-band cellular Monte-Carlo code in order to model and calculate high-field charge transport and defect assisted impact ionization coefficients in ultra-wideband gap semiconductors.
Robert received his B.A. in mathematics and physics from Lake Forest College in spring 2018. In fall 2018, Robert was admitted to the physics PhD program at Arizona State University where he joined the Nanoscience Lab, NSL, under Dr. Robert Nemanich. Within the lab Robert focuses on atomic layer deposition and material analysis via XPS/UPS. Robert’s contributions to ULTRA belong to the research initiatives outlined by thrust 2 wherein he uses UV photoemission of ALD deposited AlF3 on diamond to analyze diamond interface states and band alignment.
Professor Martin Kuball, FIEEE, FInstP, FIET, Fellow of MRS and the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) is Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, Professor in Physics and Director of the Centre for Device Thermography and Reliability (CDTR) at the University of Bristol. He spearheads the UK development of next generation wide bandgap and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors. Prof. Kuball was awarded in 2015 the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award for his research on wide bandgap electronic devices, in particular on the integration of GaN with diamond for ultra-high power RF devices. He holds a PhD from the Max-Planck Institute in Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany, and prior to joining the University of Bristol was Feodor-Lynen Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University, USA.
Bob Kaplar received a B.S. degree in Physics from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University, Columbus. He joined Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, in 2002 as a post-doctoral researcher, was subsequently a member of the technical staff, and is now manager of the Semiconductor Material and Device Sciences department at Sandia. His research is focused on wide- and ultra-wide-bandgap III-Nitride materials and devices for power conversion applications. Within the EFRC, he will focus on the physics of high-field transport and breakdown, as well as a co-design framework through which the impact of UWBG materials properties on power conversion systems for the electric grid will be ascertained.
Jack Flicker, Sandia National Laboratories has B.S. degrees from Penn State University in Physics and Chemistry (2006) and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Georgia Tech (2011). After graduate school, Jack joined Sandia National Laboratories as a postdoctoral appointee focusing in power semiconductor reliability in photovoltaic applications, and is currently a Principle Member of the Technical Staff. His research focuses on all aspects of power electronics and power conversion systems that enable improvements in power system operation: from incorporation of new materials and devices in power conversion systems to utilizing new topologies and controls at the system level. Jack’s research touches on all areas of the power electronics value chain ranging from usage of new devices (wide- and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors) to new topologies and controls to evaluation of system-level behavior. The nature of his work spans multiple TRL levels and incorporates everything from basic analysis to optimization and simulation to experiment and field-deployment. For the EFRC, he will be focusing on critical field determination in ultra-wide bandgap materials through simulation and experiment and extrapolating these critical field trends to improvements in power converter operations.
Lisa Molloy provides support to ULTRA through financial and administrative post-award management. Serving as a central resource for the ULTRA team, she is responsible for overall program organization and communication.
Lisa holds a bachelor's from Arizona State University and a master's from The Ohio State University. Most recently, Lisa worked at the University of Central Florida. Some of Lisa's higher education experience includes work in student affairs, program development, undergraduate academics, student retention, and project management.
Dr. Grotjohn received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1986. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University as a faculty member in 1987. He is currently Professor in the ECE Department where he works on diamond process and device research and development. He served for 9 years as the Department Chairperson and for six years as the R&D Director of the Fraunhofer USA Center for Coatings and Diamond Technologies located at MSU. His current research activities include diamond deposition reactor design, diamond process R&D for doped and undoped diamond, and diamond device design and development including diodes, transistors, quantum sensors and high energy particle detectors.
Huili Grace Xing is currently the William L. Quackenbush Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. She was with the University of Notre Dame from 2004 to 2014. She received B.S. in physics from Peking University (1996), M.S. in Material Science from Lehigh University (1998) and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara (2003), respectively. Her research focuses on development of III-V nitride, 2-D crystal, oxide semiconductors, more recently multiferroics and magnetic materials: growth, electronic and optoelectronic devices, especially the interplay between material properties and device development for high-performance devices, including RF/THz devices, tunnel field effect transistors, power electronics, DUV emitters and memories. She is a recipient of AFOSR Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award and ISCS Young Scientist Award. She is a fellow of APS. She has authored/co-authored 250+ journal papers including Nature journals, Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, Electron Device Letters, and 100+ conference proceeding publications in IEDM, ISPSD etc.