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Scientist funded to improve silicon technology
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June 27, 2003
Mike Thewalt wants to take silicon—a material that reigns supreme in the semiconductor world—to new heights of perfection. The Simon Fraser University physicist is not sure where pushing the boundaries of this element, which has already revolutionized electronic technology, will take him. However, Thewalt now has a sizeable, annual discovery (operating) grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council NSERC for the next five years to fund his exploration.
The $102,000 annual award is the largest grant to a SFU researcher in the most recent round of NSERC discovery grant funding. What really delights Thewalt is that it will finance the "most significant work I have done in my career" and that the funding is for pure, not immediately applicable, research. "There is a danger for people working in areas such as semiconductor physics, with such wide and profound applications, that all funded research in the area has to be seen to have immediate applications, or at least to belong to a current trend. This is the way things tend to work in the United States. Happily, my success shows that this is not the case here," offers Thewalt, the past-president of the Canadian Association of Physicists.
Silicon technology is the heart of all computer chips, communications devices and consumer electronics. Thewalt will use his discovery grant and a one-time NSERC equipment grant ($92,000) to construct a unique, new spectrometer. It will enable him to analyse the spectrum of light emitted by synthetically manipulated silicon. Thewalt's work could lead to the discovery of a whole new array of electronic feats for silicon.
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Contact:
Mike Thewalt, 604.291.5740, michael_thewalt@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Websites:
Mike Thewalt: www.sfu.ca/physics/people/faculty/mthewalt/profile.html
Physics Dept: www.sfu.ca/physics/research/
NESRC: www.nserc.ca/
The $102,000 annual award is the largest grant to a SFU researcher in the most recent round of NSERC discovery grant funding. What really delights Thewalt is that it will finance the "most significant work I have done in my career" and that the funding is for pure, not immediately applicable, research. "There is a danger for people working in areas such as semiconductor physics, with such wide and profound applications, that all funded research in the area has to be seen to have immediate applications, or at least to belong to a current trend. This is the way things tend to work in the United States. Happily, my success shows that this is not the case here," offers Thewalt, the past-president of the Canadian Association of Physicists.
Silicon technology is the heart of all computer chips, communications devices and consumer electronics. Thewalt will use his discovery grant and a one-time NSERC equipment grant ($92,000) to construct a unique, new spectrometer. It will enable him to analyse the spectrum of light emitted by synthetically manipulated silicon. Thewalt's work could lead to the discovery of a whole new array of electronic feats for silicon.
—30—
Contact:
Mike Thewalt, 604.291.5740, michael_thewalt@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Websites:
Mike Thewalt: www.sfu.ca/physics/people/faculty/mthewalt/profile.html
Physics Dept: www.sfu.ca/physics/research/
NESRC: www.nserc.ca/