Brillson, Leonard

Biography

Len Brillson in his MBE laboratory

Leonard J. Brillson holds a joint appointment between the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, the Department of Physics, and the Center for Materials Research leading an interdisciplinary research effort in Electronic Materials. Before joining the faculty at the Ohio State University, he was a director of Xerox Corporation's Materials Research Laboratory and had responsibility for Xerox's long-range physical science and technology programs at the company's research headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. A.B., Princeton University and Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, both in physics. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), the AVS Science & Technology Society (AVS), the Materials Research Society (MRS) and a former Governing Board member of the American Institute of Physics (AIP). Brillson’s primary research sponsors have been the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Honda Research Institute, General Electric Research, Office of Homeland Security (OHS), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences (BES).

Engineering Inclusive Excellence Certificate

Expertise

Brillson’s research interests cover a broad science and engineering program in the structure and properties of electronic materials surfaces and interfaces at the atomic and nanometer scales, emphasizing wide band gap semiconductors for microelectronics and optoelectronics, semiconductor heterostructures for renewable energy generation, semiconductor transistors for bioelectronics sensors, thin film dielectrics for insulating gate structures, and complex oxides for spintronic, communications, radar, and ultrasensitive antenna applications. Brillson has authored over 360 professional publications including technical articles, invited reviews, monographs, and two sole-author textbooks with over 11,500  citations to his work (h-index = 55), including the ISI Citation Classic, The Structure and Properties of Metal-Semiconductor Interfaces. His awards include Xerox Corporation’s Outstanding Achievement Award, Surface Science Magazine’s Excellence Award, Citation Classic recognition by the Institute for Scientific Information, IEEE Columbus’ Technical Achievement Award, the AVS Science and Technology Gaede-Langmuir award, a National Science Foundation American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellowship, and Ohio State University’s Distinguished Scholar Award. Brillson has led over 50 projects with a total budget of nearly $20 million. Thirty-five former members of his group are now either faculty or technical staff members in companies, government labs, and startups.

EMNL Lab

The Electronic Materials and Nanostructures Laboratory at The Ohio State University was established with the primary goals of performing research in the following areas:

  • Emerging Optoelectronics
  • Wide Band Gap Power Electronics
  • Complex Oxide Electronics
  • Field Effect Transistor Bioelectronics
  • Solar Cell Interfaces
  • Depth-Resolved Cathodoluminescence Spectroscopy

 

Research Interests

  • Electronic defects and doping in semiconductors
  • Dielectric breakdown in high power devices
  • Nanoscale electronics manipulation and control
  • Two-dimensional electronic materials
  • Metal-semiconductor Schottky barriers and ohmic contacts
  • Electronic measurement and control of solid-state battery interfaces
  • Neutron, proton, and X-ray irradiation effects on electronics
  • High permittivity dielectrics for next generation microelectronics
  • Molecular beam epitaxy of complex oxides
  • Transparent conducting oxides
  • Solid-state biosensors
  • Solar cell interfaces