Suraj Cheema is a Materials Science Ph.D. candidate in Prof. Salahuddin’s group at U.C. Berkeley and received his B.S. degree from Columbia University in Materials Science (MSE), Applied Math, and Pre-Medical. He is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and U.C. Chancellor’s Fellow and has been awarded the Materials Research Society (MRS) Gold Award and Francis Rhodes Prize (top of Columbia MSE class). He has a first-author publication in Nature regarding ultrathin ferroelectric order on silicon and has previously been a research intern for MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Philips Electronics working on negative capacitance and magneto-actuation, respectively.
Research
Suraj’s primary research focuses on emergent atomic-scale ferroic order in conventionally centrosymmetric materials, and exploiting (anti-)ferroelectricity and negative capacitance in ultrathin films on silicon for advanced logic and memory applications. Additional research interests include ferroelectric electrostatic gating of correlated electron systems and electric-field control of magnetism in symmetry-broken materials (magnetoelectrics, ferroelectric-like polar metals, and spin-orbit torque systems). His experimental expertise lies in thin film deposition (ALD, PLD, sputtering), ultrathin film characterization at synchrotron X-ray facilities (spectroscopy, diffraction, microscopy, in-situ field), and developing electrical diagnostics for ultrathin ferroic films (tunnel junctions, in-plane and RF polarization switching).
