The “China Materials Conference 2024” Advanced Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Materials Sub-Forum Was Successfully Held.

From July 8 to 11, 2024, the China Materials Conference 2024—the 2nd World Materials Conference—was grandly held at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention Center. As a national-level flagship event dedicated to new materials, the China Materials Conference was convened shortly after the conclusion of the National Science and Technology Conference, the National Science and Technology Awards Ceremony, and the Academicians’ Conference of the Two Academies. It aims to accelerate the development of new productive forces and drive major breakthroughs in the field of new materials, in alignment with the nation’s goal of becoming a strong country by 2035 through integrated collaboration among government, industry, academia, and research institutions. At this conference, 92 sub-forums were organized across five major areas—energy materials, environmental materials, advanced structural materials, functional materials, and materials design, preparation, and evaluation—as well as three cutting-edge youth forums, eight specialized new materials forums, two rapid-update zones, the China Materials Education Conference 2024, a materials journal forum, and four training workshops. In addition, an international exhibition of new materials research instruments and equipment was held concurrently, providing a diverse platform for exchanges tailored to the varied needs of participants. Over 20,000 materials science and technology professionals, corporate representatives, and young scholars from across the country gathered at the conference, including more than 50 academicians from the Two Academies and over 1,500 nationally outstanding talents, who came together to discuss and share cutting-edge technologies and the latest research findings in materials science, sparking brilliant intellectual exchanges.

The "Advanced Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Materials Sub-venue," organized by the Integrated Circuit Materials Industry Technology Innovation Alliance and jointly supported by the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Beijing Multi-Dimensional Electronic Materials Technology Development and Promotion Center, the Beijing Superstring Memory Research Institute, and the Integrated Circuit Professional Committee of the Shanghai Society of Electronics, was held concurrently. The sub-venue aims to promote exchanges and cooperation among experts, scholars, and industry representatives in China's microelectronics and optoelectronics materials fields, share the latest research findings on microelectronics and optoelectronics materials, processes, and devices, and further enhance China's academic standards and technological innovation capabilities in these fields.

Researcher Zhao Chao from the Beijing Superstring Memory Research Institute serves as the Chair of the “Advanced Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Materials Subsession.” Researcher Yu Wenjie, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Academician Yang Deren from Zhejiang University serve as Vice Chairs of the subsession. This “Advanced Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Materials Subsession” features 13 invited talks, 23 oral presentations, and 14 poster presentations. The number of participants exceeds 60. The presented papers cover a wide range of topics in the fields of microelectronics and optoelectronics materials, including: novel storage materials and technologies, wide-bandgap semiconductor materials and devices, hetero-integrated materials and devices, new display materials, and other materials used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and optoelectronic devices; advanced packaging materials; carbon-based functional materials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene—along with other novel two-dimensional materials; material characterization techniques and methods; and material design theories and computational simulations.

Opening remarks by Researcher Zhao Chao, Chair of the Conference and from the Beijing Superstring Memory Research Institute.

Researcher Song Zhitang from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Semiconductor Phase-Change Memory.” During his presentation, Researcher Song Zhitang highlighted his team’s recent research advances in phase-change materials, switching materials, and the industrialization of phase-change memory. After nearly two decades of dedicated effort, Researcher Song Zhitang proposed the octahedral unit and the three-dimensional constrained phase-change theory. Guided by this theory, his team has designed a variety of phase-change materials and successfully demonstrated their mass-production feasibility. In the field of switching materials, Researcher Song Zhitang’s team developed a single-element Te switching material based on a completely new principle, providing a groundbreaking approach for the development of three-dimensional phase-change memory. This achievement was selected as one of the Top Ten Scientific Advances in China for 2022. On the industrialization front, the yield rate of phase-change memory chip units fabricated using a 40nm process has already reached 99.99999%. The team is now stepping up its efforts to accelerate the industrialization of phase-change memory.

Researcher Song Zhitang from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered an invited talk.

Researcher Zhang Jianjun from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to deliver an invited talk entitled “Molecular Beam Epitaxy Growth of Silicon-Based SiGe Materials.” The talk primarily introduced recent research efforts on the preparation of one-dimensional quantum wires and two-dimensional heterostructure thin films via molecular beam epitaxy. These studies include the controlled fabrication of high-quality one-dimensional germanium and germanium-silicon quantum wire materials, as well as high-quality two-dimensional heterostructure electron- and hole-gas materials such as SiGe/Si/SiGe and SiGe/Ge/SiGe. Silicon-germanium is not only a channel material for advanced nodes in integrated circuits but also a key material for semiconductor quantum computing. The advantages of using molecular beam epitaxy to prepare silicon-germanium materials lie mainly in two aspects: first, it enables the creation of heterojunctions with atomically sharp interfaces; second, it allows the growth of high-quality single-crystal silicon and silicon-germanium thin films at low temperatures below 400°C, meaning that silicon (or germanium) or silicon-germanium materials can be epitaxially grown repeatedly—or even multiple times—on silicon-based devices, thereby enabling the heterogeneous integration of specific silicon-based materials and devices.

Researcher Zhang Jianjun from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered an invited talk.

Researcher Zhang Qingzhu from the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Key Processes for Advanced Gate-All-Around Devices and Research on Novel Device Structures.” As the feature size (CD) of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits continues to shrink, mainstream fin-field-effect transistors (FinFETs) are facing challenges such as reduced mobility, weakened gate control capability, increased leakage current, and higher power consumption. Adopting the gate-all-around (GAA) device structure has become a trend in the future development of integrated circuits. GAA devices with stacked silicon nanosheets (SiNS), which are compatible with mainstream FinFET processes, exhibit significant advantages in gate control and driving performance and have already been adopted as the device structure for 3-2 nm technology nodes by all major international giants, including Samsung, TSMC, and Intel. The talk primarily introduced the research team’s recent progress in key processes, modular technologies, and device integration techniques for fabricating GAA stacked SiNS MOSFETs. It focused on core technological breakthroughs achieved in areas such as nanosheet release, channel surface treatment, leakage current control, and threshold voltage modulation, and also explored novel device structures that can further enhance gate-control characteristics.

Researcher Zhang Qingzhu from the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered an invited report.

Professor Hai'ou Li from the University of Science and Technology of China was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Research on Silicon-Based Semiconductor Quantum Dot Qubits.” Semiconductor quantum dots are among the promising candidates for realizing quantum computing. In recent years, his team has conducted a series of experimental explorations on silicon-based metal-oxide-semiconductor (Si-MOS) and gate-all-around germanium nanowire material systems. In Si-MOS quantum dots, they have achieved highly efficient control over the electron spin relaxation time, with its dependence on the magnitude and direction of the external magnetic field exhibiting strong anisotropy—resulting in a two-order-of-magnitude enhancement of the relaxation time. By leveraging the Pauli spin blockade principle, they have realized the manipulation and readout of spin qubits and demonstrated a noise-robust readout scheme. Through simulation of micromagnetic parameters, they identified the optimal operating point for qubit manipulation and, based on flip-mode electric dipole spin resonance, increased the qubit manipulation speed by one order of magnitude. Furthermore, they have demonstrated single-qubit gate operations with fidelity exceeding 99%, meeting the threshold conditions required for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Additionally, they have implemented noise-robust quantum gate operations using geometric quantum computation.

Professor Li Hai'ou from the University of Science and Technology of China delivered an invited talk.

Researcher He Yu from the Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Spin-Qubit Control in Silicon-Based Atomic-Doping Systems.” Silicon-based quantum computing is currently one of the most promising quantum computing platforms. In particular, over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in silicon-based quantum computing based on doped atoms. The next key stage of research lies in developing various fundamental building blocks required for large-scale, scalable quantum computing. In his talk, Researcher He Yu reviewed the recent advances in the field of silicon-based quantum computing and placed special emphasis on systems involving doped atoms. He explained how to achieve efficient, high-fidelity control over the single-electron and single-nuclear spins in doped-atom systems and outlined specific algorithmic approaches for implementing quantum computations. Finally, he introduced a series of integrated-design concepts and ongoing explorations in this area.

Researcher He Yu from the Southern University of Science and Technology delivered an invited talk.

Professor Yu Zhihao, Vice Dean of the School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “High-Efficiency Ferroelectric In-Memory Computing Devices and Integration.” To meet the ever-growing computational demands in the era of big data, artificial intelligence needs to shift from cloud-based to edge computing. Non-volatile in-memory computing (IMC) represents the most energy-efficient approach for edge intelligence (EI); however, due to performance limitations of existing storage technologies, achieving high-efficiency in-situ training and inference, as well as index-free in-situ sparsification, has remained a highly challenging area. In his presentation, Professor Yu Zhihao introduced a hardware solution based on ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) and atomically thin MoS2 channels: By designing an in-memory computing unit architecture and developing co-designed software-hardware algorithms, he realized a versatile IMC system capable of localized training and inference, with in-memory sparse computation. Based on this solution, a fully hardware-based neural network was constructed, demonstrating significant energy efficiency advantages in computational tasks such as nonlinear localization and image recognition, thus providing a new solution for edge computing.

Professor Yu Zhihao from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications delivered an invited talk.

Professor Cheng Yan from East China Normal University was invited to deliver an invited talk entitled “Atomic-level Observation of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 Thin Films.” Ferroelectric materials based on HfO2 have attracted widespread attention in the research on next-generation nonvolatile memory and logic devices due to their superior scalability and compatibility with CMOS processes. However, the HfO2 system exhibits multiple phase structures, and the orthorhombic (O) ferroelectric phase is thermodynamically unstable, posing significant challenges for mechanistic studies. In this report, the in-situ Cs-TEM technique was used to directly observe the dynamic phase transitions occurring in polycrystalline HfO2 ferroelectric thin films during rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The study revealed a dynamic atomic-scale structural evolution—from the centrosymmetric tetragonal (T) phase to the ferroelectric O phase—under the influence of an electric field. This finding provides crucial technical support for the industrialization of HfO2 ferroelectric materials.

Professor Cheng Yan from East China Normal University delivered an invited talk.

Researcher Zhou Xilin from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Breaking the Switching Endurance Limits of Phase Change Memory.” In the field of emerging storage technologies, phase-change memory (PCM) is regarded as a next-generation solution with the potential to fundamentally transform the established paradigms of traditional storage architectures, thanks to its excellent scalability, non-volatility, and fast switching speed. However, high operating power consumption and limited cycle life remain critical challenges facing PCM technology as a storage-class memory. In her presentation, Researcher Zhou Xilin introduced a mushroom-shaped PCM device featuring a self-sealing structure and carbon-doped GeSbTe (CGST) material. By mitigating the over-programming effect, this device achieved a durability exceeding 1.1 × 10¹¹ cycles. Further optimization of the device structure and programming scheme could even further enhance the endurance performance of PCM cells. This research provides a new approach for storage-class memory based on PCM devices, which boast ultra-long cycle life, high thermal stability, and do not impose additional process burdens.

Researcher Zhou Xilin from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered an invited talk.

Dr. Cao Kaihua from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Research on Key Materials for Low-Power Spintronic Memory.” In the era of big data, the traditional von Neumann architecture has hit storage and power consumption bottlenecks when dealing with massive amounts of data. With the rapid development of non-volatile memory, magnetoresistive random-access memory (MRAM)—with its high write speed and low power consumption—has brought new hope for realizing the “compute-in-memory” architecture. Dr. Cao highlighted the breakthroughs achieved by his research group in the study of spin-transfer torque MRAM (STT-MRAM), spin-orbit torque MRAM (SOT-MRAM), and antiferromagnetic-based random-access memory (ARAM). These advances have laid a crucial material technology foundation for the mass production of STT-MRAM, SOT-MRAM, and ARAM chip technologies.

Dr. Cao Kaihua from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics delivered an invited talk.

Researcher Gao Lei from Beijing University of Science and Technology was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Atomic Simulation Study on the Interaction Between Graphene and Substrates.” Graphene exhibits outstanding mechanical, electrical, thermodynamic, and optical properties. Atomic simulation methods, such as first-principles calculations, can explore the origins and control mechanisms of these exceptional properties at the electronic and atomic scales. Using atomic simulation approaches, the researcher investigated the interactions between graphene and interfaces with materials such as Ge, Ru, Ir, and Cu, revealing the fundamental reasons behind graphene’s superior frictional characteristics. Focusing on twisted graphene, the study provided a comprehensive physical picture of how the vertical current in twisted graphene evolves with the twist angle, as well as the atomic-level mechanism underlying the “domino-like” stacking transition in twisted graphene.

Researcher Gao Lei from Beijing University of Science and Technology delivered an invited talk.

Professor Wang Lin from Nanjing University of Technology was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Two-Dimensional Halide Optoelectronic Materials and Devices.” Traditional liquid-phase methods lack precise control over the synthesis and processing of materials with macroscopic dimensions and ultrathin thicknesses. The water interface is ubiquitous and uniquely important in catalyzing numerous chemical reactions. However, research on two-dimensional (2D) materials associated with water interfaces remains significantly limited. Professor Wang highlighted her team’s approach for growing millimeter-scale 2D halide single crystals at the water–air interface. Using this simple and low-cost method, her team has successfully fabricated a variety of 2D halide optoelectronic materials and devices. Furthermore, Professor Wang’s team has developed water-based technologies—including water immersion, spin-coating, water-assisted etching, and water-flow-assisted transfer—for the recovery, dilution, patterning, and positioning of 2D halide and perovskite materials.

Professor Wang Lin, Nanjing University of Technology Deliver an invited talk

Dr. Zi-Chao Li from Jiangsu Leuven Instruments Co., Ltd. was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “Ion Beam Deposition Technology and Its Applications.” Ion beam deposition (IBD) technology has become a key approach in advanced materials science, enabling precise control over the thickness, composition, coverage, and microstructure of thin films. In his presentation, Dr. Li provided an in-depth exploration of the fundamental principles and critical technologies underlying ion beam deposition. He highlighted IBD’s versatility in producing high-quality thin films, particularly its outstanding capabilities in achieving exceptional uniformity, coverage, density, surface roughness, resistivity, and selective deposition. Furthermore, Dr. Li introduced IBD’s wide-ranging applications across various industries, showcasing its significant impact in the production of semiconductors, optical coatings, and magnetic thin films.

Dr. Li Zichao from Jiangsu Leuven Instruments Co., Ltd. delivered an invited report.

Researcher Lan Linfeng from the State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices at South China University of Technology was invited to deliver an invited talk titled “High-Mobility Rare-Earth-Doped Oxide Semiconductor Materials and Their Applications.” In 2004, Professor Hosono from Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan invented amorphous oxide semiconductor material InGaZnO4 (IGZO) for thin-film transistors (TFTs). The high Ga doping addressed the issue of high off-state current and difficulty in turning off TFT devices, enabling its successful application in flat-panel displays. However, this material suffers from relatively low mobility and threshold voltage drift under negative gate bias plus light and thermal stress (NBITS). To address these fundamental scientific challenges—low mobility and poor NBITS stability—the research team investigated the role of charge-transfer transitions involving rare-earth ions in enhancing the photo-stability of oxide semiconductors. The results show that charge-transfer transitions involving tetravalent rare-earth ions (such as Pr4+ and Tb4+) can convert incident light into non-radiative transitions, significantly improving the photo-thermal stability of oxide TFTs.

Researcher Lan Linfeng from South China University of Technology delivered an invited talk.

In addition, Zhang Yiwen from the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hou Linjie from the Beijing Superstring Memory Research Institute, Zheng Jia from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zou Qianqian from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xu Wangying from Jimei University, Cui Dongsheng from Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology, Ma Zhongjie from the Southern University of Science and Technology, Qu Min from Northern Industrial University, Li Penghui from Xi'an Technological University, and Chen Zhengli from Guizhou University. More than 20 teachers and students, including Sha, delivered outstanding oral presentations and shared their research findings. Shi Guangjie from East China Normal University and Wang Yuhao from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences received the Outstanding Poster Award in their respective sub-venues.

Conference venue

Award for Best Poster 　　

The report presented at this conference was truly outstanding. The atmosphere at the venue was highly academic, and the audience actively engaged in lively question-and-answer sessions and discussions. The participants gained ample opportunities for exchange and learning, which have greatly promoted the advancement and innovation of academic standards and technological development in China’s fields of microelectronics and optoelectronic materials.