The Centre for Device Thermography and Reliability is a research facility at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, a

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...

located in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, by Professor Kuball the centre is engaged in thermal and reliability research of semiconductor devices, in particular for microwave and power electronic devices. It is housed in the H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, a noted physics laboratory associated with the Physics department of the university. The centre is noted for developing an integrated Raman-IR thermography technique to probe self-heating in silicon, GaAs and other devices. This enables unique thermal analysis of semiconductor devices on a detailed level not possible before. These techniques are critical in understanding the reliability of

Compound semiconductor Semiconductor materials are nominally small band gap insulators. The defining property of a semiconductor material is that it can be compromised by doping it with impurities that alter its electronic properties in a controllable way. Because of ...

devices applicable in power and microwave devices and in the long term as a viable replacement for Silicon devices as it approaches the end of scaling. The institute gets funding from various government and private sector sources, such as European Space Agency and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Solid state device research

The H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, named after

Henry Herbert Wills Henry Herbert 'Harry' Wills (20 March 1856 – 11 May 1922) was a businessman and philanthropist from Bristol, and a member of the Wills tobacco family. He was the son of Henry Overton Wills III and Alice Hopkinson and was born in Clifton, Brist ...

, is the home of the department of Physics of the university. Former heads of department include Sir Charles Frank (crystal growth, liquid crystals) and Nobel Laureates C. F. Powell (whose discovery of the π meson marked the birth of modern particle physics), and

Sir Nevill Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors ...

. The Aharonov-Bohm effect and the Berry phase are also Bristol discoveries. The School carries out research in the fields of Astrophysics, Correlated Electron Systems, Micro and Nanostructural Materials, Nanophysics and Soft Matter, Particle Physics, Quantum Photonics and Theoretical Physics. The school is a principal stakeholder in the university's £11 million Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information and the £3 million Centre for Device Thermography and Reliability. The laboratory is one of the quietest laboratories in the world.

Research

The centre carries out in research in the following areas. * Microwave and Power electronic devices * Thermal management research * Electronic Device Performance and Reliability * Device Simulation

References

{{University of Bristol , state=expanded

Educational institutions established in 2001 2001 establishments in the United Kingdom