Tenure Talk: About Chalcogenide Compound Semiconductors, and Life, but Mostly Chalcogenide Compound Semiconductors

Speaker

Rafael Jaramillo
Thomas Lord Career Development Professor
Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
MIT DMSE

Abstract

I will present short stories that attempt to explain my commitment to working on chalcogenide compound semiconductors, how I got here, and what might come next.

Chalcogenides have peculiar solid-state chemistry that makes them well-suited for certain applications, for instance in VIS-NIR optoelectronics. I will explain how I came to be fascinated by chalcogenides, by way of working on oxides and reading a lot of John Goodenough, and how I chose to make chalcogenide processing the focus of my research group. I will describe some of our successes in semiconductor processing, and where I hope they lead in the future.

As time allows, I will also share thoughts on how I came to such an exciting role as to be a tenured professor at MIT, via a path that was not exactly straightforward.

Biography

Professor Jaramillo earned a BS and an MS in Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University and did his doctoral work in physics at the University of Chicago, receiving his PhD in 2008. He went on to do postdoctoral research at Harvard University and MIT before joining the DMSE faculty in 2015.