Thin Films and Microelectronics Group

The Thin Films and Microelectronics Group of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) has an experience of decades researching on microelectronics and semiconductor devices. The group is actually composed of 2 full professors, 3 professors, 3 postdoctoral researchers and 3 PhD students. 4 theses have been defended in the last 10 years, and 20 undergraduate projects in the last 5 years. The group has published more than 40 high-impact papers and has patented 2 technologies in the last 5 years. Stable collaborations are maintained with national (Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona, CIEMAT, etc.) and international research groups (Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, etc). The group receives funding every year from national competitive calls from the Ministry of Science and from the Comunidad de Madrid. The group is responsible or has access to the following equipment: ion implanter, optical lithography, high pressure sputtering, ion-beam evaporation, ECR-CVD, reactive ion etching, semi-automatic wire bonder, and many characterization equipments, like a complete optoelectronic characterization system in the visible and infrared range with temperature control down to 12 K or two probestations with impedance and current analyzers.

Currently, there are two main lines that gather most of our efforts:
- Supersaturated and intermediate band materials based on silicon and III-V semiconductors for photovoltaic devices. Taking advantage of sub-bandgap photons, in particular in the infrared range, the efficiency of solar cells could be enhanced. The group developed the technology necessary to fabricate these materials and now is immersed in the fabrication of prototype devices in collaboration with the Solar Energy Institute (Madrid), CIEMAT (Madrid) and UPC (Barcelona). Although the overall efficiency of devices is still low, we have demonstrated the onset of sub-bandgap quantum efficiency.
- Supersaturated and intermediate band materials based on silicon for infrared photodetectors. IR photodetectors based on silicon could have enormous advantages among current technologies, including: no need of cooling devices, minimizing the use of toxic and scarce materials, reduced cost and CMOS compatibility due to the use of silicon as substrate, and, finally, the possibility of design visible-extended-to-IR devices. The IR detectors market is underpenetrated at this moment and the group is evaluating the first prototypes aiming at the industrial transference of the process. We are now fabricating and testing prototypes pixel matrices. The full technology is being developed in our facilities.

Complete curriculum vitae with a summary of publications, conferences and patents.