Spring 1999 Newsletter

Student Spotlight - Kathryn Wilder

A CIS Newsletter interview with Ph.D. candidate Kathryn Sara Wilder

CN: How did you arrive at your area of study?

KW: When I came to Stanford I was looking for an interesting area of research related to the semiconductor industry but I didn't have a particular area in mind. The specific area I chose, Scanning Probe Lithography (SPL), was determined as much by my advisor, Professor Calvin Quate, as anything else. I got lucky; I found a group that was working on a really exciting project and still had some work to be done.

CN: Can you describe your experience working in Professor Quate's research group?

KW: Great group, great advisor. Professor Quate is extremely creative and fosters a very productive work environment. I can't say enough good things about the experience.

CN: Tell me about your experience as an FMA fellow. How did interaction with your mentor benefit your research?

KW: I had a very rewarding experience working with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), where I'd been a summer intern before entering the FMA program. During my first year, I rotated with Professor Fabian Pease in the Electrical Engineering department, who was doing some exciting work, a bit related to what I'm doing now. He got me in touch with some of the people in AMD's Advanced Process Development group. Bhanwar Singh, David Kyser and Bill Arnold were my contacts there and ever since we've kept in touch. WeÕve written some papers together, collaborated on projects, they've funded my research, and allowed me to use their research facilities. It's been a very supportive relationship for me.

CN: Tell me a bit about your research and its potential impact.

KW: Scanning Probe Lithography is a very high-resolution lithography technique for the semiconductor industry. We're targeting this as a new technology to be used potentially in five to ten years. There are four or five other competing technologies looking to get in that same niche. We're the underdog, but I think in the last few years we've demonstrated that we're a feasible contender. Now our challenge is to show, quickly enough, that our technology can compete with some of the proposed alternatives.

CN: What were some of the toughest difficulties you ran into?

KW: The greatest challenge has been achieving sufficient speed or throughput. Our technique is one where we actually move a probe around the surface of our sample. We have the resolution and we've recently demonstrated good reliability. I think now the biggest challenge for us is the throughput issue. That's where we've been focusing most of our energy recently.

CN: Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

KW: There's some light in that members of our group have shown that you can make 50 probes together or even two-dimensional arrays. The idea is if you can make one, you can make 50 or 100 or even 10,000. We are trying to demonstrate parallel patterning with about 50-100 probes. We feel that if we can do that, it'll be the first major leap to establishing increased throughput.

CN: What's next for you?

KW: I'm pleased to have an offer from IBM, which I believe stemmed from a presentation I made at CIS. IBM is one of the few industrial labs where they're doing cutting-edge research. It's a unique environment.

CN: Any advice as an outgoing student?

KW: Find something you're excited about. It's hard to keep up the long hours in the lab and the effort required for any project if you don't believe in it. Just as important, perhaps even more so, is finding the right people to work with. If you're excited about a project, but you don't have the right infrastructure to support it -- the right advisor, people to work with or equipment -- I think it's not likely to go anywhere. I think it's important to look around, talk to people before you join a group, make sure they're people you can work with closely.

CN: Did you participate in any SPIE trips?

KW: Yes, I went on several SPIE trips. It's a great program. It helped me get a feel for the industrial environment and the different culture at various companies.

CN: What could be done to attract more women to engineering?

KW: I think it has to be done early on in the educational system. Most studies show girls doing better than boys in science and math in elementary school. Between 6th and 10th grade, that turns around dramatically. I think we need to target the middle school area where they seem to drop off. I had a great physics teacher in high-school. He was very enthusiastic and his students really responded to that.

CN: Have you thought about teaching?

KW: Yes, a lot. I know what a powerful impact it can have. But I think it's something a little further on down the road for me.

Professor Calvin Quate on Kathryn Wilder

"In preparing the material for an invited talk at a major conference, which in itself is unusual for a graduate student, Kathryn was able to show that the quality of the lines patterned with Scanning Probe Lithography was equal to the quality of lines made with Electron Beam Lithography. It was a significant advance for our program. In her research assignment, Kathryn was asked to investigate problems associated with the fabrication of silicon devices with feature sizes less than 100 nm. She has actually produced lines 26 nm in width. When she posted these results, our spirits soared. It is an experience I will long remember."