Eugene A. Fitzgerald

Biography

The groundbreaking work of Judy L. Hoyt and Eugene A. Fitzgerald involving strained silicon semiconductor materials has enabled the continued shrinking of integrated circuits, providing faster chips and devices. Based on Dr. Fitzgerald’s breakthrough of successfully fabricating strained (Si) on relaxed silicon germanium (SiGe) (stretching the Si crystal when applied to another material) in 1990, Dr. Hoyt and colleagues at Stanford pioneered the application of strained silicon to increase carrier transport properties in Si metal-oxide field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). In 1992, Dr. Hoyt used thin strained layers of Si on top of a relaxed SiGe artificial substrate to demonstrate the first fully functioning strained-channel MOSFETs. She later showed potential for the strain-engineered high-performance MOSFETs; results that inspired industry to harness strain in modern Si integrated circuits. Dr. Fitzgerald’s development of high mobility strained silicon on a low-defect relaxed SiGe spurred Dr. Hoyt’s work. He was able to solve defect formation problems to allow the joining of Si and Ge. He also demonstrated that highly strained materials could be deposited in small areas or, alternatively, strain-free SiGe could be deposited over large areas with a very low defect density. The ability to engineer highly relaxed and highly strained levels on Si led to Dr. Fitzgerald creating the first high-quality, high-mobility strained Si material.

An IEEE Member, Dr. Fitzgerald is the Merton C. Flemings-Singapore MIT Alliance Professor of Materials Engineering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.