News — WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 22 2018 -- As the phones get slimmer, the optics crisper and the processors faster, have you ever wondered what is happening behind the scenes that make these remarkable achievements possible? During the AVS 65th International Symposium and Exhibition, Oct. 21-26, 2018, in Long Beach, California, Svetlana Radovanov will discuss the research and development that ultimately are used to create the particle accelerators driving these technological advances.
Radovanov, a staff scientist at Applied Materials, Varian Semiconductor Equipment, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was invited to speak during the session entitled Vacuum Technology Division, Large Chambers and Accelerators to share more than two decades of experience developing ion beam technology.
“Svetlana is one of the handful of people doing the basic physics to design the particle accelerators, known as ion implanters, which are used to modify the properties of silicon to become semiconductor devices,” said Steve Borichevsky, the AVS chair for the program Advancing the Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces and Processing. “This session is a way to share information about the exciting work that she does with silicon doping technology.”
According to Radovanov, her customers are companies that buy ion implanters that can control the characteristics of the transistor (i.e., speed and electrical and optical properties). To reach this goal, she works with a team of engineers to design ion implanters using computer simulations. After the exhaustive modeling, the prototype is built and tested by the customer.
“Twenty years ago people would just build something and, through testing, they would refine the device to make the desired product,” Radovanov said. “These days, we model the system that operates at a very high dose under very low energy.”
With each technological advance, the team is faced with new requirements that the ion implanters must fulfill. Today, Radovanov and the team must figure out how to fine-tune a crystal lattice in the larger matrix to impart the desired electrical properties of the silicon chip.
“In a way, the physics of these sophisticated devices is requiring that you can implant atom by atom,” Radovanov said. “After causing damage to the crystal, the tools must rebuild the [the crystal] structure afterward.”
To accomplish this level of precision, the researchers need to engineer the surface of a material to a given depth. Radovanov has developed hardware that uses 3D models to simulate how the ion implanters will function for this type of complicated task. During the presentation, Radovanov will share the design of several devices, discuss the state of modeling technology and explore analytical processes.
“What is exciting about physics is that there are always new things to learn,” Radovanov said. “We are trying to project the future and develop something that will eventually become mainstream.”
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Presentation 519, “Beamline Technology and Current Modeling Capabilities for Ion,” by Svetlana Radovanov, is at 10:40 a.m. PT, Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, in Room MoM 203B at the Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, California.
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MORE ABOUT THE AVS 65TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM & EXHIBITION
The symposium is being held Oct. 21-26, 2018, in Long Beach, California.
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As an interdisciplinary, professional Society, AVS supports networking among academic, industrial, government, and consulting professionals involved in a variety of disciplines - chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, all engineering disciplines, business, sales, etc. through common interests related to the basic science, technology development, and commercialization of materials, interfaces, and processing area.
Founded in 1953, AVS is organized into technical divisions and technical groups that encompass a range of established as well as emerging science and technology areas. There are also regional chapters, international chapters and affiliates, and student chapters that promote communication and networking for professionals and students within a geographical region. AVS is comprised of approximately 4,500 members worldwide.
AVS is a member society of the American Institute of Physics with additional benefits for our members. For more information about AVS, visit our website at .
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