IBM Research GmbH, Zürich Research Laboratory (ZRL), with approximately 350 employees, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the IBM Research division with headquarters at the T.J. Watson Research Centre in Yorktown Heights, NY, USA. ZRL, which was established in 1956, represents the European branch of IBM Research.
At ZRL scientific and industrial research is conducted in three scientific and technical departments, in particular in the Science and Technology department. Throughout the history of this department, scientists have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge in solid-state physics, stimulated by problems relevant to technology. Today’s research focuses on different areas of technological significance, such as photonics and optoelectronics, CMOS and post-CMOS, micro fabrication, packaging, life sciences, quantum computing, and neuromorphic computing. This effort is supported by the Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Centre, offering state of the art micro fabrication yet with the required flexibility for any research at the frontier between industrial and academic research.
ZRL is involved in many joint projects with universities throughout Europe, in research programs established by the European Union and the Swiss government, and in co-operation agreements with research institutes of industrial partners. The Material Integration and Nanoscale Devices (MIND) and the Neuromorphic Devices and Systems team focuses its efforts on the development of new materials and novel integration schemes, with a strong focus on functional oxide materials and III-V’s on Si for applications in high mobility CMOS, integrated photonics and novel computing paradigms. The team involved has a strong background in the field of material science, with a focus on Molecular Beam Epitaxy as a vehicle for thin film deposition, and on advanced materials characterization such as XPS, XRD or HRTEM.
A unique experience has been gathered in the development of heterogeneous integration concepts for non-standard materials with CMOS technology. Over the last years the team pioneered the use of epitaxial ferroelectric films for integrated silicon photonics, pushing the integration of such novel materials towards the demonstration of real devices. The group has also played an important role in attracting the attention of the CMOS community on the benefit of III-V as nFET channel, focusing on the development of high performance III-V/SiGe CMOS circuits.
MEET THE TEAM
Bert Jan Offrein
Manager Photonics
Zurich Research Laboratory, Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Bert Jan Offrein joined IBM in 1995 and worked on optical components for WDM networks.
From 2004 to 2016, he was the manager of the photonics group at IBM where he was leading several international and global collaborative R&D projects on electro-optical interconnect technology.
Since 2016 he is managing the neuromorphic devices and systems group, focusing on novel hardware for cognitive systems. He is a (co-) author of over 100 publications and more than 40 patents and patent applications.
