STROBE Awards

Nicholas Jenkinshas been announced as the 2024 recipient of the $10,000 Nick Cobb Memorial Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Siemens EDA — formally Mentor, a Siemens company — for potential contributions to advanced lithography or a related field. Jenkins will also be honored during 2024’s SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning conference.

The Nick Cobb scholarship recognizes an exemplary graduate student working in the field of lithography for semiconductor manufacturing. The award honors the memory of Nick Cobb, who was an SPIE Senior Member and chief engineer at Mentor. His groundbreaking contributions enabled optical and process proximity correction for IC manufacturing. Originally funded for three years ending in 2021, the Nick Cobb Scholarship will be awarded to one student annually for an additional period of three years, through 2024.

Jenkins is pursuing a PhD in Physics at JILA and the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). His research, under the guidance of Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, focuses on the precise fabrication and metrology of nanomaterials and devices to advance science and technology in areas such as nanoelectronics and metamaterials. As a final-year PhD student, Jenkins leads several experimental campaigns to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) scatterometry and imaging in order to more precisely measure the structure and composition of nanoscale objects. Jenkins received his BS in Physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, in 2018, and his MS in Physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2021. He won the 2022 Colorado Photonics Industry Student Poster Contest, is currently working on projects for Samsung, 3M, and the Moore Foundation, and excels in his commitment to mentoring others.

“I’m honored to receive the Nick Cobb Memorial Scholarship and I’m excited for the opportunity to share my research with others in the field at the upcoming SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning meeting,” notes Jenkins. “The metrology community has continued to help push forward what humans are capable of on the nanoscale, and I’m glad to be part of the effort.”

Jessica Ramella-Roman has been elected as a Fellow of Optica for her pioneering contributions to the study of polarized light transport in biological media through experimental and computational approaches.

The Board of Directors of  Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, recently elected 129 members from 26 countries to the Society’s 2024 Fellow Class. Optica Fellows are selected based on several factors, including outstanding contributions to research, business, education, engineering and service to Optica and our community.

Fellows are Optica members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics. The Fellow Members Committee, led by Chair Ofer Levi, University of Toronto, Canada, reviewed 216 nominations submitted by current Fellows. The Committee extends its thanks to all of this year’s nominators and references. As Fellows can account for no more than 10 percent of the total membership, the election process is highly competitive. Candidates are recommended by the Fellow Members Committee and approved by the Awards Council and Board of Directors.

The new Fellows will be honored at Optica conferences and events throughout 2024.

Congratulations to Prof. Chris Regan and Dr. William Hubbard for receiving the 2023 Microscopy Today Innovation Award for Low Noise, Two Channel STEM EBIC System.

NEI’s STEM EBIC system enables straightforward imaging of electronic and thermal features that are otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to visualize in the TEM. Electron beam-induced current (EBIC) is a measure of the current generated in a sample as it is raster-­scanned by a focused electron beam. Associating the measured EBIC with the beam position produces an EBIC image. First implemented in the 1960s, EBIC imaging is usually performed in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to map electric fields in microelectronic devices. For instance, the built-in electric field of a p-n junction separates electron-hole pairs generated by the beam, producing a strong EBIC signal. Recently, thousand-fold improvements in current measurement sensitivity have led to practical EBIC imaging in scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEMs). This improved sensitivity reveals previously undetectable EBICs. In particular, the EBIC generated by secondary electron emission (SEEBIC) can now be routinely visualized.

Standard TEM-based techniques excel at determining the physical structure of a sample—the atomic locations and elemental identities—but they struggle to distinguish a metal from an insulator, or a warm interconnect from a cold one. In microelectronic devices, such electronic and thermal structure is generally of greater interest than the physical structure. STEM SEEBIC-based imaging of micro- and nano-electronic devices reveals these signals at high resolution. It can, for instance, quantitatively map conductivity, electric field, temperature, SE yield, active dopant concentration, and work function.

NEI’s STEM EBIC system is a turn-key solution for measuring extremely small EBICs. Low-noise STEM EBIC images of sub-pA signals, including SEEBIC, can be acquired in under two minutes. Extrinsic noise (for example, line noise) is nearly undetectable, so image filtering and post-processing are not necessary. The system—featuring a sample holder, custom substrates, and electronics optimized for EBIC in the TEM—is equipped with two independent EBIC amplifier channels for acquiring EBIC from different electrodes simultaneously. Two-channel EBIC can definitively separate SEEBIC from standard EBIC in situations where both are present, which greatly facilitates analysis and interpretation. NEI’s STEM EBIC system is designed to work with other in situ techniques, including heating and biasing on either custom-fabricated test devices or FIB-extracted cross-­sectional samples.

Ruiming Cao received the Best Student Paper Award for his paper titled, “Speckle Structured Illumination of Dynamic Samples with a Neural Space-time Model” at the Optica Imaging Congress this fall. Congratulations, Ruiming!

The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000.