METU Semiconductor Materials and Devices Group

The Semiconductor Materials and Devices (SMD) group has been working on the semiconductor materials and devices for many years. Group's main interest has been semiconductor nanocrystals and their applications to nanoelectronics and photonics in recent years. Recent research activities include developing fundamental knowledge on the production techniques, characterization methods and applications of semiconductor nanocrystals to electronic and photonic devices such as floating gate memories and light emitting devices. One of the main objectives of the group is to expand its research activities to include nanostructured thin semiconductor films and their applications to solar cells.

The head of the group, Prof. Dr. Rasit Turan, is currently coordinating two FP6 STREP projects called SEMINANO (with contract number: 505285) and METU-CENTER (contract number: 017125). SEMINANO is a project on the science and technology of semiconductor nanocrystals with 12 partners from 9 countries. It is a three year project starting from September 1, 2004. METU-CENTER is a Specific Supported Action type project aiming at improving the research capacity of the METU.

The group leader, Prof. Dr. Rasit Turan has been working on semiconductor materials and devices since 1983. He completed his Ph. D. in Physics at University of Oslo-Norway in 1990, and worked as Post. Doc. at Toronto University, Canada and also at Linkoping University in Sweden. He has been working at Department of Physics at METU for 11 years. He has in depth experience on semiconductor materials and devices. He is currently leading 1 Post. Doc.,6 M. Sc. and 8 Ph. D. students. Five of these students are working on a thesis which is directly related to nanotechnology. He has been in several collaboration projects with European research groups. In addition to the above mentioned FP6 project he is coordinating, he participated in the COST 523 action in 1999-2004 which is about nanostructured materials. He was the Turkish representative in the management committee of this action.

SMD group is working with European research organization closely.  It is the associate partner of the project Nanoforum which has been supported by European Union under the framework program 5. The group is actively participating in the Nanoforum activities and they are planning a new international event with participation of METU in Turkey in the coming years.