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A grand challenge
BOOKS & MEDIA UPDATE Career Management for Chemists
A grand challenge
John Fetzer Springer (2004), 266 pp. ISBN: 3-540-20899-2 $39.95 / £19.50 / 29.95
Fetzer’s book provides advice for those looking to plan, manage, or redirect their careers. Beyond good technical and research skills, he highlights the equally important abilities of communication and teamwork in building a successful career. Topics such as resumes, networking, leadership, presenting, and mentoring are all covered.
Pioneering Research: A Risk Worth Taking Donald W. Braben John Wiley & Sons (2004), 198 pp. ISBN: 0-471-48852-6 $39.95 / £23.50 / 33.30
Braben asserts the importance of scientific freedom in his book, which campaigns against the rising levels of bureaucracy that he believes are strangling human ingenuity. The need for originality, for exploring ideas wherever they lead, and to pursue goals because they are important are vital for scientific development and economic growth, he argues.
Biological Nanostructures and Applications of Nanostructures in Biology Michael A. Stroscio and Mitra Dutta (eds.) Kluwer Academic Publishers (2004) 192 pp., ISBN: 0-306-48627-X $130 / £80.60 / 117
The contributions in this book review research at the interface between nanostructures and biological systems. Biomedical applications of semiconductor quantum dots and carbon nanotubes are discussed alongside descriptions of the physical properties of nanoscale cellular structures. Bioinspired approaches to nanofabrication are also covered.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
High-k Gate Dielectrics reviews the deposition, characterization, modeling, and integration of novel gate dielectrics for CMOS transistors, which will be needed if transistor dimensions are to continue to reduce, says Susanne Stemmer. Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistors are the enabling devices for Si-based microprocessors. The continuous scaling of transistor dimensions has allowed processors to operate at increasing speeds, but it now appears that this scaling has reached some fundamental limitations. In particular, over the past decades, the same material, SiO2, has served as a dielectric layer in these transistors. Along with the lateral scaling of transistor dimensions, the thickness of the dielectric has to be continuously reduced and is now approaching a few atomic layers (~1 nm). Further reduction is prohibited, as thinner layers will not act as insulators and leakage currents and power consumption will become excessively large. One of the semiconductor industry’s ‘grand challenges’ is, therefore, to find new materials to replace SiO2 as the gate dielectric. These gate dielectrics should have a higher dielectric constant (k) than SiO2, to permit greater physical thickness, and should not degrade transistor performance. However, the introduction of new materials into Si-based devices has turned out to be more difficult than was initially appreciated. Michel Houssa’s edited volume High-k Gate Dielectrics is a timely review of this rapidly evolving research field.
High-k Gate Dielectrics focuses on the materials science of these new oxides and shows that they must meet many challenges. The book contains several chapters on new deposition techniques, characterization methods, theory, and integration. The individual chapters provide a complete, in-depth coverage of current understanding, making the book an excellent source of reference for researchers in high-k gate dielectrics and, in particular, for newcomers to the field. The contributions contain a significant body of relevant and timely data. Several chapters, such as that by Ritala on atomic layer deposition and Almeida and Baumvol on oxygen diffusion, cover an impressively large number of candidate gate dielectric materials.
The book shows how advances in high-k gate dielectrics have required the development of new approaches. For example, Stesmans and Afanas’ev cover the characterization of dielectric layers by electron spin resonance, Robertson and Peacock deal with the calculation of band offsets, and Lucovsky and Whitten discuss the bonding of transition metal oxides and their interfaces. Chapters by Stesmans and Afanas’ev, and Houssa et al. focus on the physical and electrical characterization of high-k oxides and show that, while rapid progress has been made over the last couple of years, the understanding of the nature of defects in these layers is still at an early stage. The important role of theory is reflected in six chapters covering the theoretical understanding that is vital in the interpretation of what are often very difficult experiments. For example, the chapter by Rignanese, Gonze, and Pasquarello presents predictive calculations of the dielectric properties of high-k oxides. The impressive work and methods presented in these chapters should make the book of interest for a readership beyond those immediately involved in high-k gate dielectric research. The final three chapters cover device and integration issues. Michel Houssa (ed.) High-k Gate Dielectrics Institute of Physics (2003), 616pp., ISBN: 0750309067 $120.00 /£75.00
It is likely that the field of gate dielectrics will continue to rapidly evolve over the next few years and aspects of the book will become out of date. However, several chapters, such as the one on reduction of electron mobility by Fischetti, Neumayer, and Cartier, provide a timeless, fundamental understanding of novel semiconductor/oxide heterostructures. I recommend the book as a very good reference source and overview to researchers with interest in high-k gate dielectrics. Susanne Stemmer is an assistant professor of materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
September 2004
49
A grand challenge
John Fetzer Springer (2004), 266 pp. ISBN: 3-540-20899-2 $39.95 / £19.50 / 29.95
Fetzer’s book provides advice for those looking to plan, manage, or redirect their careers. Beyond good technical and research skills, he highlights the equally important abilities of communication and teamwork in building a successful career. Topics such as resumes, networking, leadership, presenting, and mentoring are all covered.
Pioneering Research: A Risk Worth Taking Donald W. Braben John Wiley & Sons (2004), 198 pp. ISBN: 0-471-48852-6 $39.95 / £23.50 / 33.30
Braben asserts the importance of scientific freedom in his book, which campaigns against the rising levels of bureaucracy that he believes are strangling human ingenuity. The need for originality, for exploring ideas wherever they lead, and to pursue goals because they are important are vital for scientific development and economic growth, he argues.
Biological Nanostructures and Applications of Nanostructures in Biology Michael A. Stroscio and Mitra Dutta (eds.) Kluwer Academic Publishers (2004) 192 pp., ISBN: 0-306-48627-X $130 / £80.60 / 117
The contributions in this book review research at the interface between nanostructures and biological systems. Biomedical applications of semiconductor quantum dots and carbon nanotubes are discussed alongside descriptions of the physical properties of nanoscale cellular structures. Bioinspired approaches to nanofabrication are also covered.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
High-k Gate Dielectrics reviews the deposition, characterization, modeling, and integration of novel gate dielectrics for CMOS transistors, which will be needed if transistor dimensions are to continue to reduce, says Susanne Stemmer. Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistors are the enabling devices for Si-based microprocessors. The continuous scaling of transistor dimensions has allowed processors to operate at increasing speeds, but it now appears that this scaling has reached some fundamental limitations. In particular, over the past decades, the same material, SiO2, has served as a dielectric layer in these transistors. Along with the lateral scaling of transistor dimensions, the thickness of the dielectric has to be continuously reduced and is now approaching a few atomic layers (~1 nm). Further reduction is prohibited, as thinner layers will not act as insulators and leakage currents and power consumption will become excessively large. One of the semiconductor industry’s ‘grand challenges’ is, therefore, to find new materials to replace SiO2 as the gate dielectric. These gate dielectrics should have a higher dielectric constant (k) than SiO2, to permit greater physical thickness, and should not degrade transistor performance. However, the introduction of new materials into Si-based devices has turned out to be more difficult than was initially appreciated. Michel Houssa’s edited volume High-k Gate Dielectrics is a timely review of this rapidly evolving research field.
High-k Gate Dielectrics focuses on the materials science of these new oxides and shows that they must meet many challenges. The book contains several chapters on new deposition techniques, characterization methods, theory, and integration. The individual chapters provide a complete, in-depth coverage of current understanding, making the book an excellent source of reference for researchers in high-k gate dielectrics and, in particular, for newcomers to the field. The contributions contain a significant body of relevant and timely data. Several chapters, such as that by Ritala on atomic layer deposition and Almeida and Baumvol on oxygen diffusion, cover an impressively large number of candidate gate dielectric materials.
The book shows how advances in high-k gate dielectrics have required the development of new approaches. For example, Stesmans and Afanas’ev cover the characterization of dielectric layers by electron spin resonance, Robertson and Peacock deal with the calculation of band offsets, and Lucovsky and Whitten discuss the bonding of transition metal oxides and their interfaces. Chapters by Stesmans and Afanas’ev, and Houssa et al. focus on the physical and electrical characterization of high-k oxides and show that, while rapid progress has been made over the last couple of years, the understanding of the nature of defects in these layers is still at an early stage. The important role of theory is reflected in six chapters covering the theoretical understanding that is vital in the interpretation of what are often very difficult experiments. For example, the chapter by Rignanese, Gonze, and Pasquarello presents predictive calculations of the dielectric properties of high-k oxides. The impressive work and methods presented in these chapters should make the book of interest for a readership beyond those immediately involved in high-k gate dielectric research. The final three chapters cover device and integration issues. Michel Houssa (ed.) High-k Gate Dielectrics Institute of Physics (2003), 616pp., ISBN: 0750309067 $120.00 /£75.00
It is likely that the field of gate dielectrics will continue to rapidly evolve over the next few years and aspects of the book will become out of date. However, several chapters, such as the one on reduction of electron mobility by Fischetti, Neumayer, and Cartier, provide a timeless, fundamental understanding of novel semiconductor/oxide heterostructures. I recommend the book as a very good reference source and overview to researchers with interest in high-k gate dielectrics. Susanne Stemmer is an assistant professor of materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
September 2004
49