Meet the Team
Leadership
Arizona State University
ULTRA Director
Thrust 1, Thrust 2, Thrust 3
Nemanich's research group has applied advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to characterize the growth and properties of thin film interfaces and nanostructures.
Deputy Director
Thrust 2, Thrust 3, Thrust 4
Goodnick is the deputy director of ASU Lightworks. Some key research contributions: photovoltaics, global modeling of high frequency devices, fabrication and characterization of nanoscale semiconductor devices.
ULTRA Project Manager
Bailey Williams is a Research Project Manager from the Research Project Management Office at Arizona State University. She recieved her B.S. degree in Management and B.A. in Marketing from the University of South Florida in 2015, an M.B.A. from Liberty University in 2018, and a P.M.P. Certification from the Project Management Institute in 2024.
Stanford University
Science & Collaboration Director
Thrust 3
Professor Srabanti Chowdhury (PhD '10, George and Ida Mary Hoover faculty fellow '19, Gabilan Fellow '19, Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in Physics '20) is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering (EE) and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. Her research focuses on wideband gap (WBG) and ultra wideband gap (UWBG) materials…
Principal Investigators
Arizona State University
Prof. Fu received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2019, and the BS degree in Materials Physics from Wuhan University, China in 2014. Prior to joining ASU, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. Prof. Fu’s research focuses on third-generation wide/ultrawide bandgap…
Deputy Director
Thrust 2, Thrust 3, Thrust 4
Goodnick is the deputy director of ASU Lightworks. Some key research contributions: photovoltaics, global modeling of high frequency devices, fabrication and characterization of nanoscale semiconductor devices.
ULTRA Director
Thrust 1, Thrust 2, Thrust 3
Nemanich's research group has applied advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to characterize the growth and properties of thin film interfaces and nanostructures.
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
Fernando Ponce is a professor of physics at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the physics of semiconductor materials, in particular for light emitting and sensing applications. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the National University of Engineering (UNI) in Lima, Peru, and doctorate degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University…
Thrust 3, Thrust 4
From 1996 to 1998, Marco Saraniti was a faculty research associate with the Electrical Engineering Department of Arizona State University. He joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, in 1998, where he was awarded tenure in 2004 and was promoted to the rank of full professor in June 2007. He joined the faculty of the School of…
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
Arunima K. Singh is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University and a graduate faculty of the Materials Science and Engineering department at ASU. In the EFRC center, Singh is the co-leader of Thrust 2 and a PI of Thrust 1 and 2. Prior to joining the ASU faculty, Singh was a postdoctoral associate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the…
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
David Smith is Regents’ Professor of Physics at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in Physics (1978) and D.Sc. (1988) from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He served as Director, Cambridge University High Resolution Electron Microscope (1980 to 1984) and Director, ASU Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy (1991 to 2006), and he was President of the Microscopy…
Cornell University
Thrust 1, Thrust 2, Thrust 4
Debdeep Jena received the B. Tech. degree with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2003. His research and teaching interests are in the MBE growth and device applications of quantum semiconductor…
Thrust 2, Thrust 3
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…
Michigan State University
Thrust 1, Thrust 4
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…
Sandia National Laboratories
Thrust 3
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…
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…
Stanford University
Science & Collaboration Director
Thrust 3
Professor Srabanti Chowdhury (PhD '10, George and Ida Mary Hoover faculty fellow '19, Gabilan Fellow '19, Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in Physics '20) is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering (EE) and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University. Her research focuses on wideband gap (WBG) and ultra wideband gap (UWBG) materials…
University of Alabama, Birmingham
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
Mary Ellen Zvanut is a Professor of Physics and Graduate Program Director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Throughout her career, her research has focused on point defects in semiconductors and insulators, particularly those pertinent to advanced technology. While early work focused on electrical characterization, most has been based on magnetic resonance studies of impurities and…
University of Bristol
Thrust 2, Thrust 3, Thrust 4
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…
University of California, Riverside
Thrust 4
Richard Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Program at University of California Riverside. His research focuses on using optical pump/probe techniques to understand thermal transport phenomena and ultrafast material dynamics. As part of the Ultra center, his group is working to understand how structure,…
Rice University
Thrust 1, Thrust 2, Thrust 4
Dr. Yuji Zhao is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University. He received the Ph.D. degree from University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2012 under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Professor Shuji Nakamura. Yuji Zhao’s research and teaching interests are in the area of electronic materials, advanced devices, and nanotechnologies. His current…
University of California, Los Angeles
Thrust 4, Thrust 3
Alexander A. Balandin is a Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA. His research interests include Brillouin and Raman spectroscopy, thermal transport, and electronic noise in electronic materials. He is a recipient of the MRS Medal and IEEE Pioneer of Nanotechnology Award, and a Fellow of MRS, APS, IEEE, OSA, SPIE, and AAAS. He serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of…
Research Staff
Arizona State University
Post Doctoral Researcher
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
Alec M. Fischer is a Research Professor at the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from the National university of Engineering in Lima, Peru in 2004 and his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Arizona State University in 2009. His main research work is related to correlating the optical and structural properties of III-nitrides in optoelectronic…
PhD Researcher
Thrust 1
Ziyi He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University in 2021 and B.S. degree in Huazhong University of Science and technology in 2020. He joined ULTRA in 2021 and works on the MOCVD growth of ultra-wide bandgap materials and related devices.
PhD Researcher
Dinusha is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University. He received his master’s degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2021. His current research involves developing high-voltage electronic devices using the ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductor aluminum nitride (AlN) and understanding their…
PhD Researcher
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
Franz Alexander Koeck received his M.S. in Physics in 2003 from North Carolina State University where he started working on diamond as electronic material. His expertise lies in the development of plasma chemical vapor deposition systems for electronic grade diamond and characterization of the material and related devices. For the ULTRA project he is involved in studying the growth…
Researcher
Thrust 2
Ramandeep is a doctoral candidate in the Materials Science and Engineering program at Arizona State University. She earned her Master's degree in Metallurgical Engineering with a specialization in Physical Metallurgy from RWTH-Aachen in Germany, and her undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology - Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU) in India. After…
Cody Milne is a first year PhD student at Arizona State University. He graduated from Idaho State with a BS in Physics, minor in math, where he also spent time working toward a MS before coming to Arizona State. His past research experience includes detector design and other work in experimental neutrino physics. Now he is eager to start doing research in solid state physics. He is…
PhD Researcher
Thrust 1
Gabriel Munro-Ludders is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University, where he works in the Nano Science Laboratory. He received a dual B.S. degree in Physics and Math from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a M.S. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His past research includes correlating thin film morphology to growth…
PhD Researcher
Thrust 3, Co-Design Thrust
Jonah is pursuing a PhD in physics, where he is researching low- and high-field transport properties of ultra-wide bandgap materials using Monte Carlo simulation methods with Dr. Steve Goodnick. Jonah obtained his first degree, a BS in plant biology, in 2013. He went on to work as a private tutor for several years, specializing in math, chemistry, and biology. He left in 2017 to pursue a…
PhD Researcher
Parker Ralph Steenblik is a second year PhD student at Arizona State University. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS in Physics and a Minor in Computer Science. His undergraduate research experience includes deriving thermophysical properties of molten salts from simulation and using Deep Learning to advance and more accurately predict these properties. Molten salts are used…
Graduate Researcher
Ali Ebadi Yekta received his Master’s degree in Solid-state physics from Kharazmi University in Iran. He is a PhD candidate in physics at Arizona State University where his research focuses on PECVD growth of cubic/hexagonal boron nitride and their interfaces with diamond.
Cornell University
Researcher
Thrust 3
Joseph Dill is a 3rd year PhD student at Cornell University, advised by Profs. Huili (Grace) Xing and Debdeep Jena. . He completed his BS in physics at the University of Minnesota in 2021. His work at Cornell has primarily focused on measuring the low- and high-field transport of holes in GaN/AlN two-dimensional hole gases.
Michigan State University
S M Asaduzzaman is a third-year PhD student at Michigan State University. His research primarily focuses on the intriguing realm of Microwave plasma-assisted CVD (MPACVD) Diamond deposition and the refinement of Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) techniques for diamond substrates, with a strong emphasis on achieving superior surface planarization and smoothness. He possesses a wealth of hands…
Thrust 1, Thrust 2
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…
Sandia National Laboratories
Staff Scientist
Thrust 3
Andrew Binder (PhD '19 - University of Central Florida) is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. His research is focused on the development of vertical GaN (vGaN) power devices. At Sandia, Andrew leads a small fab team developing vGaN JBS and MOSFET devices. Under his leadership, this fab team has successfully demonstrated the 1st vGaN trench MOSFETs at Sandia.…
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Mihai Negoita is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National
Laboratories. His work focuses on the physical modeling and TCAD simulation
of wide and ultrawide bandgap power devices. Prior to joining Sandia, he worked
for 10 years at Synopsys as a Sentaurus Device developer. He received his Ph.D.
in Material Science/Electronic Materials from Duke…
Stanford University
PhD Researcher
Nishita (Nish) Sinha is a current PhD student in Professor Srabanti Chowdhury's lab at Stanford University. She is very interested in making devices that can help improve upon the efficiency of power conversion circuits to better support renewable energy and to drive down the carbon dioxide emissions associated with electricity. She is starting work on diamond based photoconductive…
University of Alabama, Birmingham
University of Bristol
PhD Researcher
Arpit Nandi is a PhD research scholar focusing on homo & hetero-epitaxial MOCVD growth of Gallium Oxide with Prof. Martin Kuball at Center for Device Thermography and Reliability, University of Bristol. Recent focus include growth of crystalline thin film of beta-Gallium Oxide on high thermal conductive substrates (Diamond).
Post Doctoral Researcher
Thrust 4
Xiang Zheng is a research associate in Center for Device Thermography and Reliability (CDTR) at the University of Bristol. He got a PhD degree from Beijing University of Technology in 2020. His PhD research included the trapping effect in GaN-based HEMTs and the temperature measurement of wide bandgap semiconductors. His current research interests are the transport and thermal management of…
University of California, Riverside
Graduate Researcher
Thrust 4
Samreen Khan joined University of California Riverside in Fall 2020 as a PhD student under Dr. Richard Wilson. She received her B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in 2020.
Rice University
PhD Researcher
Shisong Luo (sl187@rice.edu) received his M.Eng and B.Eng degree in Microelectronics in 2022 and 2019 from Sun Yat-sen University. After that, he joined Rice University and started pursuing a Phd.D degree. He is working with Prof. Yuji Zhao on GaN and UWBG devices research.
PhD Researcher
Mingfei Xu (mx9@rice.edu) received his B.S. degree in Physics in 2020 from Wuhan University. He joined the Rice WIDE Lab led by Prof. Yuji Zhao in 2021 and is currently seeking a Ph.D degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice. He is primarily working on ultrawide bandgap semiconductor-based electronics, especially boron nitride and diamond.
University of California, Los Angeles
Post Doctoral Researcher
Thrust 4
Subhajit Ghosh is a research engineer at the University of California Los Angeles. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California Riverside in 2022, where his research focused on studying the electrical and low-frequency noise characteristics of advanced emerging materials and devices. Currently, at Ultra, Subhajit is involved in conducting comparative…
PhD Researcher
Thrust 4
Erick Guzman joined the University of California Riverside in Fall
2020 as an Electrical engineering PhD student under Dr. Alexander Balandin. He received his B.S. (2017) and M.S. (2020) in Physics from the California State University Northridge, and is currently an affiliate researcher at the University of California Los Angeles. His research is focused on studying the optical and…