Bio

Deblina Sarkar completed her M.S. and PhD in the ECE department at UCSB in 2010 and 2015, respectively. Her doctoral research, which combined the interdisciplinary fields of engineering, physics and biology, included theoretical modeling and experimental demonstration of energy-efficient electronic devices and ultra-sensitive biosensors. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Synthetic Neurobiology group at MIT and is interested in exploring novel technologies for mapping and controlling the brain activity.

Ms. Sarkar is the lead author of numerous publications including several eminent journals such as Nature, Nano Lett., ACS Nano, TED as well as prestigious conferences such as IEDM, DRC and has authored/coauthored more than 30 papers till date. Several of her works have appeared in popular press and her research on novel biosensors, has been highlighted by Nature Nanotechnology. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including being awarded Presidential Fellowship and Outstanding Doctoral Candidate Fellowship for pursuing doctoral research (2008), one of three researchers worldwide to receive the prestigious IEEE EDS PhD Fellowship Award (2011), one of the 4 young researchers from USA honored as “Bright Mind” and invited to speak at the KAUST-NSF Conference (2015), and one of three winners of the Falling Walls Lab Young Innovator’s competition at UC San Diego (2015).

2D Steep Transistor Technology: Overcoming Fundamental Barriers in Low-Power Electronics and Ultra-Sensitive Biosensors

2D Steep Transistor Technology: Overcoming Fundamental Barriers in Low-Power Electronics and Ultra-Sensitive Biosensors

Aggressive technology scaling has resulted in exponential increase in power dissipation levels due to the degradation of device electrostatics as well as the fundamental thermionic limitation in subthreshold swing of conventional Field-Effect Transistors (FETs). My research, explores novel two-dimensional (2D) materials for obtaining improved electrostatic control and Tunneling-Field-Effect-Transistors (TFETs), employing a fundamentally different carrier transport mechanism in the form band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) for overcoming the fundamental limitations of conventional FETs. This tailoring of both material and device technology can lead to transistors with super steep turn-on characteristics, which is crucial for obtaining high energy-efficiency and ultra-scalability.

My research, also establishes, for the first time, that the material and device technology which have evolved, mainly with an aim of power reduction in digital electronics, can revolutionize a completely diverse arena of bio/gas-sensor technology. The unique advantages of 2D semiconductors for electrical sensors is demonstrated and it is shown that they lead to ultra-high sensitivity, and also provide an attractive pathway for single molecular detectability- the holy grail for all biosensing research. Moreover, it is theoretically illustrated that steep turn-on, obtained through novel technology such as BTBT, can result in unprecedented performance improvement compared to that of conventional electrical biosensors, with around 4 orders of magnitude higher sensitivity and 10x lower detection time.

With the aim towards building ultra-scaled low power electronics as well as highly efficient sensors, my research achieves a significant milestone, furnishing the first experimental demonstration of TFETs based on 2D channel material to beat the fundamental limitation in subthreshold swing (SS). This device comprising of an atomically thin channel exhibits record average SS at ultra-low supply voltages, thus, cracking the long-standing issue of simultaneous dimensional and power supply scalability and hence, can lead to a paradigm shift in information technology as well as healthcare.