The Naval Research Laboratory
(NRL) and the University of Western Australia (UWA), Nedlands,
Australia, signed a licensing agreement on the Quantitative Mobility
Spectrum Analysis (QMSA) to Lake Shore Cryotronics Incorporated
(LSCI) of Westerville, Ohio, on April 16. QMSA is an improved
method for extracting electron and hole characteristics from
electrical resistivity and Hall effect measurements in the presence
of a magnetic field. It will be marketed to the semiconductor
industry as a commercial software product. NRL and LSCI will
soon sign a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA)
to facilitate bringing the new product to market.
Title 35 of the United States
Code, Section 207, authorizes federal agencies to license their
patents. The license authorizes the licensee to manufacture and
market the product.
The advanced QMSA technique for
characterizing semiconductor materials and devices was developed
by Drs. Jerry R. Meyer, Craig A. Hoffman and Filbert J. Bartoli
of NRL's Optical Sciences Division in collaboration with Drs.
Jarek Antoszewski and Lorenzo Faraone of UWA.
According to Dr. Meyer, NRL's
principal investigator for work under the agreement, "Following
input of the raw Hall and resistivity data at a series of magnetic
fields, the OMSA generates 'mobility spectra' containing all
of the desired information about electron and hole densities
and mobilities. Most of the wealth of detail is lost when standard
measurements are carried out at a single magnetic field...While
several earlier approaches were able to extract much of the same
information, none combined the quantitative accuracy, degree
of automation, and ease of graphical interpretation available
with the QMSA. Our software package will make it much easier
for both experts and non-experts to interpret semiconductor electrical
data."
Mr. Jeffrey R. Bergen, LSCI's
vice president of New Business Development, said, "Our customers
in the semi-conductor industry are more than anxious for this
technology. The combined efforts of LSCI and UWA, with the talents
and resources at NRL whose reputation in the research field is
well known, will enable us to move forward quickly to make this
technology available commercially."
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is the Navy's full-spectrum corporate laboratory, conducting a broadly based multidisciplinary program of scientific research and advanced technological development. The Laboratory, with a total complement of nearly 2,500 personnel, is located in southwest Washington, D.C., with other major sites at the Stennis Space Center, Miss., and Monterey, Calif. NRL has served the Navy and the nation for over 85 years and continues to meet the complex technological challenges of today's world. For more information, visit the NRL homepage or join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
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