Innovative semiconductor device researcher at NJIT to receive professional award

For innovative research on semiconductor devices, NJIT Professor Durgamadhab (Durga) Misra, the associate chair for graduate programs in the Newark College of Engineering (NCE) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will receive next May the 2013 Division Award of the Electronic and Photonic Division of the Electro-Chemical Society (ECS). Misra is an ECS Fellow.

The research interests of this former director of NJIT's Microelectronics Research Center and visiting Bell Laboratories professor include nanoelectronic/optoelectronic devices and circuits, high-k gate dielectrics for low power nanoscale CMOS devices, photovoltaic and resistive RAM devices technology.

Misra's research for the last 25 years has contributed much to semiconductor devices. His work on plasma-processing induced damage advanced the understanding of its impact to silicon-silicon dioxide, silicon substrate and SiGe devices for making more robust electronic devices.

His work has not only clarified the mechanism of defects creation in silicon dioxide due to plasma processing, but also provided solutions for immunity to the CMOS devices from such damage by using nitrogen implantation before the thermal oxide growth. Some of his publications in this field are regarded as seminal contributions.

His work on process-induced damage to coherently strained silicon-germanium film has received attention. This work advocated caution to preserve the electronic properties of silicon-germanium films to enhance the reliability of devices and circuits. Misra has also worked on electronic and optoelectronic devices such as pinned-buried photodiodes, CMOS magnetic field sensors and quantum well infrared detectors, in which he was involved in modeling, processing, characterizing and analyzing.

In collaboration with Princeton Scientific Instruments, Misra designed the photo detector that reduced the electron transit time in the device such that it can be collected by the detector's collecting gate of the image sensor. This work has received international recognition.

Misra has published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed publications, presented more than 30 invited talks in international conferences, universities, research laboratories and industries worldwide. He served as an associate editor of IEEE Circuits and Devices and editorial board member of Interface magazine and ECS Transactions. He has been on the program committees of many nano-electronic conferences and served as track chair of IC Technology division of the IEEE International VLSI Design Conference. He received the Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2010 from the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

In 2005, Misra received NJIT's Excellence in Teaching Award for demonstrating excellence in the classroom and for encouraging and guiding students to work at their highest academic level. With his efforts, 10 PhD students, 40 MS students and more than 50 undergraduate students have received degrees.

Misra was awarded his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada; MS in management from NJIT; MASc in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo and MTech in solid state materials from Indian Institute of Technology.