Director
Michael Waltl was born in Oberndorf near Salzburg, Austria. He received the BSc degree in electrical engineering, the degree of Diplomingenieur in microelectronics, and the doctoral degree in technical sciences from TU Wien in 2009, 2011, and 2016, respectively. His scientific focus is on experimental characterization and modeling of reliability issues prevalent in semiconductor devices and devices with more exotic 2D materials. In this field, he primarily studies bias temperature instabilities in modern transistors. He also leads the device characterization laboratory at the institute, where he is in charge of developing electrical measurement methods.
Administration
Diana Pop was born in Brasov, Romania. She received the Bachelor’s degree in applied physics from Transylvania University of Brasov Romania, the Master’s degree in remote engineering, and the master of arts following the IBM study at FH Kärnten, Austria, in 2009, 2011, and 2016 respectively. From 2009 to 2011 Diana was with IEEE Women in Engineering and in 2009 she was a visiting research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Diana is currently employed as a project manager at the Institute for Microelectronics, where she is in charge of the European and nationally funded projects and is part of the administration of the institute. She joined the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy in January 2019 and is responsible for financial and organizational topics.
Petra Kamptner-Jonas was born in Vienna, Austria. She has over 30 years of experience in the private sector of which almost 20 years she was in a leading position. Petra is currently employed as project support at the Institute for Microelectronics. She joined the SDS teams in April 2021 and is supporting the team members with administrative tasks.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Pedram khakbaz was born in Arak, Iran. He received his Ph.D. degree in electronics engineering from the University of Udine, Italy, in 2022 where he studied the electronic transport in devices based on two-dimensional semiconductors. From Sep. 2016 to Sep. 2018, he was with the computational nano-electronics lab and finished his M.Sc. degree in nano and micro-electronics engineering at the University of Tehran, Iran. In June 2022, Pedram joined the Institute for Microelectronics as a postdoctoral researcher and in June 2024 the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy and his current research interests include ab initio modeling and quantum transport for the modelling of devices.
Bernhard Ruch was born in Klagenfurt, Austria in 1990. He holds an B.Sc. and M.Sc in technical physics from TU Wien which he acquired in 2014 and 2016, respectively. In 2021 he obtained his doctoral degree from TU Wien. During his doctoral research, which has been performed at KAI in Villach, he focused on the characterization and modeling of hot-carrier degradation in planar and trench power MOSFETs. Bernhard joined TU Wien and the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy in Mai 2024, where he is employed as postdoctoral researcher focusing on GaN power devices.
PhD Students
Christoph Wilhelmer was born in 1993 in Lienz, Austria. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Technical Physics from TU Wien after doing an exchange semester at the University of Bath, UK in 2017. Christoph received his Diplom-Ingenieur degree in Technical Physics from TU Wien in 2020 where he carried out his Master’s Thesis in the Quantum Materials group of the Institute of Solid State Physics. In March 2020 Christoph joined the Institute for Microelectronics where he started his PhD and joined the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy in August 2021. He is focusing on DFT simulations considering defect creation mechanisms in oxides used for semiconductor applications.
Patrick Reisinger was born in Hollabrunn, Austria, in 1996. He studied at the TU Wien, receiving his BSc degree in Technical Physics in 2020 and Diplomingenieur in Physical Energy and Measurement Engineering in 2023. After completing his studies, he worked in the automotive industry for a year before moving to the IuE as a PhD student and the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy in August 2024 where he is investigating non-volatile memory technologies.
Josef Salzmann was born in 1997 in Feldkirch, Austria. He received both his BSc degree and his Diplomingenieur in Computer Engineering from TU Wien. During his studies, he also worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Computer Engineering. In August 2024, he joined the Institute for Microelectronics and the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy, where he works on the development of computer models to simulation the impact of charge trapping effects integrated circuits.
Undergraduate Students
Maximilian Fleischer is enrolled in the bachelor program of computer engineering at TU Wien. As part of his bachelor’s thesis, he is working on the development of a web interface to control measurement instruments for defect spectroscopy in semiconductor devices.
Robert Stella is enrolled in the bachelor program of electrical engineering and information technology at the TU Wien, Austria. He is part of the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy team where is currently working on a Poisson solver and an IO library.
Peter Gubesch received his Bachelor of Science degree from TU Wien in 2019. Currently, he is enrolled in the master’s program of microelectronics and photonics at TU Wien, Austria. In the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy, he is designing a high-speed data acquisition unit with enhanced measurement resolution for defect spectroscopy measurements.
Jul Habiger is enrolled in the bachelor program of electrical engineering and information technology at TU Wien. As part of his bachelor’s thesis, he is investigating automated cluster detection algorithms based on machine learning methods to precisely evaluate experimental data collected from the characterization of single oxide defects in thin film MOSFETs.
Thomas Rößl received his Bachelor of Science degree from the Faculty for Informatics at the TU Wien. Currently, he is enrolled in the master’s program of software engineering & internet computing at TU Wien, Austria. He is working on the development of advanced programming tools for the efficient teaching of programming concepts.
Matthias Seidl is enrolled in the bachelor program of electrical engineering and information technology at TU Wien, Austria. In the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy, he is working on the advanced characterization of charge trapping in SiC MOSFETs.
Tobias Zinsler is enrolled in the bachelor program of electrical engineering and information technology at TU Wien. During his bachelor’s thesis, he was working on expanding a measurement data processing program that provides state-of-the-art evaluation methods for the defect spectroscopy of thin-film MOSFETs. As a student employee, Tobias will work at the IuE in the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy team and will continue to optimize data processing algorithms implemented in our software tools.
Gerald Wisböck is enrolled in the Bachelor programme Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at TU Wien. In the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy he is working on the development of measurement instruments.
Technician
Markus Schloffer graduated from the technical high school in Weiz, Styria, where he received his A-Levels diploma. After that, he was with NXP Semiconductor in Graz for more than three years, until he received his Ing. degree. Afterwards he moved to Vienna and worked in the field of PCB design. Since 2018 he is with the Institute for Microelectronics being responsible for hardware design and technology characterization laboratory maintenance. He joined the CDL for Single-Defect Spectroscopy in January 2019 where he supports the experimental activities.
