Alfred Y. Cho
Nokia Bell Labs
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Primary Section: 31, Engineering Sciences Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1985)
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Research Interests
Alfred Y. Cho pioneered the technology of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) which has produced new scientific discoveries in quantum physics and led to the fabrication of electronic and photonic devices with unprecedented characteristics. Molecular beam epitaxy is a crystal growth technique whereby single layers of material are grown one atomic layer at a time, changing the material being grown at will. He fabricated the first artificial superlattice in 1971 and demonstrated a solid state laser operating cw at room temperature with MBE in 1976. Most of the semiconductor lasers used in today's compact disc players and CD-ROMs are manufactured using MBE grown material. The high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) which is utilized as a high speed circuit component and high frequency, low noise direct broadcast satellite and wireless communication is manufactured by MBE. Most recently he and co-workers demonstrated a fundamentally new type of laser which is a unipolar intersubband semiconductor laser called quantum cascade laser. With his colleagues, he also demonstrated the first GaAs MOSFET which may have a great impact in wireless communications and high speed digital electronics.
