Press Releases
For research into ferroelectricity: Prof. Thomas Mikolajick receives award from the American Physical Society
Published on in PRESS RELEASES
Thomas Mikolajick, Professor of Nanoelectronics at Dresden University of Technology (TUD) and Scientific Director of NaMlab gGmbH, has been awarded the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials 2026 together with his colleague Sayeef Salahudduin from UC Berkeley. The American Physical Society is honoring his research on materials and components for microelectronics.
The prize is based on work carried out at NaMlab gGmbH. The TUD subsidiary conducts research in close cooperation with the semiconductor and microelectronics industry on new materials for micro- and nanoelectronics and on components based on them.
A Story of Almost 20 Years
In 2006, Tim Böscke, then a doctoral student at Qimonda AG in Dresden, discovered that thin, doped hafnium oxide films can be ferroelectric. In contrast to previously known ferroelectrics such as PZT (lead zirconate titanate), this allows the outstanding properties of ferroelectric materials to be easily integrated into a semiconductor process. Hafnium oxide has been a standard material in semiconductor electronics for about 20 years.
NaMLab gGmbH, headed by Prof. Mikolajick, took up this initially unexpected discovery after Qimonda's insolvency, made a decisive contribution to understanding the effect, and researched various possible applications. As a result, the effect, which has since been closely associated with NaMLab gGmbH, has become known both in industry and in academia.
“The award is a great honor and recognition of our research. With our work on ferroelectricity, we not only want to realize new non-volatile memory, but also open up new possibilities in the field of chips for artificial intelligence,” Mikolajick says about the award.
James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials
The James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials recognizes and promotes outstanding achievements in the science and application of new materials. This includes the discovery of new classes of materials, the observation of novel phenomena in known materials that lead to fundamentally new applications and scientific insights, as well as theoretical and experimental work that contributes significantly to the understanding of such phenomena. The prize is endowed with US$10,000 and has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society since 1975.
Contact:
Prof. Thomas Mikolajick
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
Institute for Semiconductor and Microsystems Technology
Chair of Nanoelectronics
Scientific Director of NaMLab gGmbH
+49 351 463-41106
thomas.mikolajick@tu-dresden.de
thomas.mikolajick@namlab.com