Milestone-Proposal:Molecular Beam Epitaxy

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Docket #:2024-14

This proposal has been submitted for review.

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To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? No

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes

Has the IEEE Section(s) in which the plaque(s) will be located agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes

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Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1973-1978

Title of the proposed milestone:

Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance; if personal name(s) are included, such name(s) must follow the achievement itself in the citation wording: Text absolutely limited by plaque dimensions to 70 words; 60 is preferable for aesthetic reasons.

For invention and refinement of Molecular Beam Epitaxy and invention that has fundamentally impacted both semiconductor physics and understanding as well as enabled innumerable products in billions of products in our society.

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.

As it was righteously written by W. Patrick McRay, from UCSB in 2007, if ‘’MBE deserves a place in the history books’’, Al Cho, the well-recognized ‘’father of Molecular Beam Epitaxy’’ should also be appointed to the Pantheon of science. Indeed, without MBE and all associated discoveries in physics of semiconductor science, research may not have move forward at such a pace, nor the industry would have been in a position to develop tools with mass production output and yield capabilities. From the small pieces of substrates onto which Al Cho have originally grown the first Quantum Cascade Lasers in a home-made reactor at Bell Labs with Federico Capasso in 1970, to the current multi-150 mm, multi-200 mm up to single 300 mm and 450 mm tools, five decades have passed. Al Cho has enabled a company like RIBER, with whom he has closely collaborated for years, to strive and develop MBE all over the world at industrial level. In 1978 the first International Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy took place in Paris, during which Al Cho was conference chair. Since 2004 an award in his name is presented every 2 years, the ‘’Al Cho MBE award’ to scientists who have made fundamental contributions to the science and technology of MBE.  It is key to highlight that MBE is THE tool that has enabled Horst Störmer and Daniel Tsui (Bell Labs) to share their 1998 Nobel prize (with Robert Laughlin) in 1998. Out of Bell Labs, MBE has contributed the shared Nobel Prize of Herbert Kroemer, Zhores Alferov and Jack Kilby in 2000. Al Cho is already the recipient of many accolades: the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1994, the Elliot Cresson Medal in 1995, the National Medal of Technology in 2007. He is also in the National Inventor Hall of Fame and he received the National Medal of Science in 1993 from Bill Clinton, President of the United States in 1993, which is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement. For his lifelong contribution in science of MBE and above, Al Cho deserves another accolade from his pairs.

IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.

Solid-State Circuits, Photonics, Communications

In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

North Jersey

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: North Jersey Section
Senior Officer Name: Hong Zhao

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: North Jersey Section
Senior Officer Name: Hong Zhao

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: North Jersey
IEEE Section Chair name: Hong Zhao

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Theodore Sizer
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 40.684031, -74.401783

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. Intention is to have the plaque just outside the main entrance to the Nokia Bell Labs facility in Murray Hill, NJ. Is both a corporate building and an Historic Site as other historical markers from IEEE are already on site both inside and outside the building.

Are the original buildings extant?

Yes

Details of the plaque mounting:

Outside the building on a rock or other permanent structure.

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

The plaque will be prior to entering the building and thus there is no need to pass through security.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

Nokia America

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include detailed support at the end of this section preceded by "Justification for Inclusion of Name(s)". (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)

Fundamental method of creating both simple and complex semiconductor devices through atomic level growth. This technique is one of the two principal methods industries use to produce all the compound semiconductor materials in the world.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

Invented techniques to grow and create single monolayers of atoms on a semiconductor surface. To do this numerous obstacles needed to be overcome from surface preparation, creation of the molecular beam itself with appropriate composition, and all happening with a vacuum chamber.

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

Fundamental discovery and method that has had immeasurable impact on society through capabilities leveraging the unique semiconductor devices MBE has enabled.

Why was the achievement successful and impactful?

MBE offered a technique engineer materials in a new and novel way. With this technique, myriad novel devices have been developed and refined resulting into MBE today being used extensively in the worldwide production of III-V devices.

Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.

IEEE Medal of Honor1994 : https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/recipient/alfred-y-cho/
A. Y. Cho, "Device fabrication by molecular-beam epitaxy," 1975 International Electron Devices Meeting, Washington, DC, USA, 1975, pp. 429-432, doi: 10.1109/IEDM.1975.188914.
A. Y. Cho and F. K. Reinhart, "Molecular beam epitaxy of GaAs voltage variable capacitors," in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 20, no. 12, pp. 1173-1173, Dec. 1973, doi: 10.1109/T-ED.1973.17824.
A.Y. Cho and W.T. Tsang, "Masked Molecular Beam Epitaxy", Integrated and Guided Wave Optics - Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 1978), paper WB1
A. Y. Cho and H. C. Casey, "IV-3 GaAs-AlxGa1-xAs double-heterostructure lasers prepared by molecular-beam epitaxy," in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 21, no. 11, pp. 741-741, Nov. 1974, doi: 10.1109/T-ED.1974.18028.

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.

Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.