Helicon Thin Film Systems, Ltd

MICRODEVICE

DEVELOPMENT

Operating under Helicon and its wholly-owned thin film R&D facilities, Helicon has a fully demonstrable 25+ year history in a the critical materials, process development, characterization, and full device development challenges in both wafer-based and novel-substrate-based micro-device development. Helicon's experienced personnel have timelines that go back over 35 years in such thin film materials challenges.

CUSTOM DEVICE DEVELOPMENT:

CUSTOM DEVICE DEVELOPMENT: Our sensor development contracts represent a wide range of thin film applications in fields such as nuclear, biological, medical, electrochemical, nonvolatile memory, semiconductor and photonics - the applications in which our services are found useful typically involve discrete packaged sensors that rely on optical or electronic determination of pressure, temperature, strain (interferometric, transducive, etc), or gas components. Thin film applications within this area can comprise active or passive structures, hermetic sealing layers, diffusion bonded assemblies, electro-optic compounds, or unique combinations of known electronic/optical characteristics combined with unusual environmental or tribological requirements.

Helicon has been involved in a large number of solid-state micro-device/sensor development and upgrade projects, where such thin film systems almost invariably require the formation of thin film architectures on demanding substrates, which can incorporate a non-conventional geometry (cylinders, optical fibers, ultra-thin membranes, etc.), unconventional materials, unconventional tolerances, or are subject to extreme conditions requiring highly-specific processing conditions.

PHOTONIC DEVICES:

Helicon Thin Film has a long and demonstrable track-record in optical materials and optical sciences, including the following photonic devices:

• Radial-mode and combined radial/whispering-gallery-mode resonators

• Morphology-dependent, high-coherence-time Bosonic qubit fabrication

• Multi-cavity Fabry-Perot filters and structures

• Suspended waveguide thin film systems

• Low-loss medical devices utilizing barrier-protected optical cavities

• Engineered-emissivity multilayer sytsems

• High-finesse Bragg structures/systems

• Lithium niobate SAW/BAW devices

• Phase-pure, doped-garnet Faraday isolators

• Switchable ferroelectric domain structures

• Surface Plasmon Resonance/Polariton devices (fabrication/testing - organic and inorganic systems)

• Plasmonic materials

NUCLEAR DETECTION DEVICES:

SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY DEVICES:

NEXT-GENERATION NON-VOLATILE MEMORY:

At Helicon, we have been heavily involved in process development for many multi-component/doped oxide compounds in a host of applications involving very different types of thin film phase development. Our work in such complex oxide phases (e.g., perovskites, garnets, etc.) have included ferroelectrics & piezoelectrics, fast ion-conductors, superconductors, opto-electronics, laser host materials, nonlinear optical materials, optically active garnets, and others.

While this field now represents an expanding array of proposed solutions, non-volatile DRAM memory based upon ferroelectric phases (FeRAM) still remains one of the most promising solutions. Within the subset of thin film ferroelectrics compatible with nonvolatile random access memory having figures of merit compatible with those pursued in the semiconductor industry, Helicon has conducted considerable work in multiple compositions. This includes specific ferroelectrics such as (SBT), (BiT), as well as more traditional ferroelectrics such as lithium niobate (LN) and potassium niobate (KN).

Whereas doped forms of the polymorphic HfO2 crystalline materials have gained considerable attention as the "new hope" in the last decade, the fact remains that (outside of marketing gimmicks) no one is yet usefully replacing the actual DRAM in working desktops , workstations, or commercial phones with a nonvolatile DRAM chip.

Of the various ferroelectric compounds, those that provide the needed figures of merit, such as the superlattice perovskite, SrBiTaO, represent both particular challenges and benefits, requiring higher temperature processing while including a more a more volatile component relative to popular lower-temperature phases such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT/PZLT) compositions. In the mid-90's we developed new methods for metallic-source reactive sputtering of ferroelectrics that enabled excellent control of stoichiometry. We have also performed device development in resistive RAM (ReRAM) architectures. However, in these various challenges, extreme reproducibility is required over literally trillions of memory elements, which typically transcribes into relying on annealing regimes that can obviate some of the benefits of non-equilibrium phase formation.

A long-sought goal for non-volatile semiconductor memory is a nonvolatile memory materials-architecture that will finally enable scalable, non-volatile, random-access memory (RAM) requirements (contrary to many claims, standard ferroelectrics, such as PZT or LN are not adequate). Yet, even now, this is still a field in its exploratory stages. If achieved, commercialized non-volatile DRAM could arguably enhance “classical” computing power and resulting human infrastructure more genuinely than quantum computing ever will.

Helicon has conducted several physical device development projects in specific ferroelectric compounds of high-switching-speed and high cycle lifetimes compatible with next-generation nonvolatile semiconductor memory.

Similar to battery research, physical quantum qubit development, and other potential-world-changing technologies, establishing the commercialization potential of a prospective nonvolatile RAM technology is an intensive discovery process, inevitably requiring capital-intensive levels of at-scale testing and qualification to understand (and optimize) fault-resistance, long-term reliability, and cycling lifetime.

ELECTROCHEMICAL DEVICES:

Helicon Corp has performed considerable R&D contract services in thin film materials of next-generation lithium batteries including silicon-anode lithium batteries, lithium/sulfur thin-film batteries; and, substantial contributions to development of reactive electron-beam and plasma-assisted evaporation sources for improving these battery manufacturing processes. Such reactive vapor sources (also include non-reactive processes such as well-controlled, high-rate lithium deposition) are today utilized in both lithium-battery cathodes and electrolytes (e.g., the LiPON-type compounds),

Helicon Corp was and is also highly involved in numerous high-temperature electrochemical device development programs that involve similar innovation in the achievement of highly-controllable, reproducible, non-equilibrium phase formation, as has been a continued theme of Helicon expertise since the Helicon Research company was first formed in the late 1990’s.

QUANTUM QUBIT DEVELOPMENT

Helicon Corp was directly involved in the critical process R&D that enabled the bench-marking of increased coherence-time in SQUID-type qubit devices for the largest market-cap quantum-computing companies in Silicon Valley.

It is a demonstrable fact that focused development programs by Helicon Corp, fully performed at Helicon's thin film R&D facilities, have critically enabled bench-mark-dependent VC tranches, by Helicon's quantum-computing start-up clients, totaling greater than $50 million - through our thin-film development work solely in this "qubit development" category.

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