Circuits fabricated from carbon nanotube (CNT) field-effect transistors (CNFETs) are projected to achieve over an order of magnitude benefit in energy efficiency compared to silicon-based circuits. However, due to challenges with fabricating this emerging nanomaterial, experimental demonstrations of CNFET-based circuits to date have been small-scale, with severely limited performance. This research aims to develop robust manufacturing processing for CNFET-based circuits, which also addresses some of the major CNFET-based challenges that exist with current fabrication techniques. The project will begin by demonstrating the feasibility of depositing densely aligned CNTs across large substrates and will move to using these methods to design, fabricate, and test complex digital CNFET-based systems.

I first met Professor Max Shulaker in his course on devices in fall 2016. Rather than just improving devices, his research focuses on building full systems. As I am still narrowing down my passion, I like that this group includes everything from devices to network analysis in its goals. I worked in the group over the summer, and SuperUROP is a way to continue devoting my time to research.