New approaches to ferroelectri­city: Prof. Thomas Mikolajick receives accolade from the American Physical Society

Thomas Mikolajick, Chair of Nanoelectronics at TUD Dresden University of Technology and Scientific Director of NaMlab gGmbH, will be awarded the 2026 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials alongside his colleague Sayeef Salahudduin from UC Berkeley. The American Physical Society is honoring his research on materials and components in microelectronics.

The prize is based on his work carried out at NaMlab gGmbH. The TUD subsidiary works closely with the semiconductor and microelectronics industry to research new materials for microelectronics and nanoelectronics, including components 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 extraordinary properties of ferroelectric materials can be easily integrated into the semiconductor process. Hafnium oxide has been a standard material in semiconductor electronics for around 20 years.

NaMLab gGmbH, headed by Prof. Mikolajick, turned its attention to this initially unexpected discovery after the insolvency of Qimonda. This makes a decisive contribution to understanding the unexpected effects of these materials and paves the way to researching various possible applications. The effect, which has since been closely associated with NaMLab gGmbH, has become well-known both in the industrial and the academic worlds.

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

The James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials recognizes and promotes outstanding achievements in the science behind and the 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 USD 10,000 and has been awarded every year since 1975 by the American Physical Society .

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