For research on ferroelectri­city: Prof. Thomas Mikolajick receives prize from the American Physical Society

Thomas Mikolajick, Chair of Nanoelectronics at TUD Dresden University of Technology (TUD) and Academic Director of NaMlab gGmbH, has been awarded the 2026 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials together with his colleague Sayeef Salahudduin from UC Berkeley. The American Physical Society is thus honoring his research on materials and components for microelectronics.

The prize is based on work at NaMlab gGmbH. The TUD subsidiary works closely with the semiconductor and microelectronics industry to research new materials for micro- and nanoelectronics and devices based on them.

In 2006, Tim Böscke, then a doctoral student at Qimonda AG in Dresden, discovered that thin, doped hafnium oxide films can be ferroelectric. In contrast to previously known ferroelectrics such as PZT (lead zirconium titanate), the outstanding properties of ferroelectric materials can thus be easily integrated into a semiconductor process. Hafnium oxide has been a standard material in semiconductor electronics for around 20 years.

NaMLab gGmbH, headed by Prof. Mikolajick, took up this initially unexpected discovery after the insolvency of Qimonda, made a decisive contribution to understanding the effect and researched various possible applications. As a result, the effect, which has since been closely associated with NaMLab gGmbH, has become known both in the industrial environment and in the academic world.

"The award is a great honor and recognition of our research. With our work on ferroelectricity, we not only want to realize new non-volatile memories, but also open up new possibilities in the field of chips for artificial intelligence," said Mikolajick about the prize.

The James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials recognizes and promotes outstanding achievements in the science and application of new materials. This includes the discovery of new classes of materials, the observation of novel phenomena in known materials that lead to fundamentally new applications and scientific findings, as well as theoretical and experimental work that contributes significantly to the understanding of such phenomena. The prize is endowed with 10,000 US dollars and has been awarded by the American Physical Society every year since 1975.

Contact:
Prof. Thomas Mikolajick
Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Institute of Semiconductors and Microsystems
Chair of Nanoelectronics
Scientific Managing Director of NaMLab gGmbH
+49 351 463-41106

thomas.m ikolajick@namlab.com