Ramamoorthy Ramesh

Ramamoorthy Ramesh (born 1960) is an American materials scientist of Indian descent who has greatly advanced the synthesis, assembly and understanding of complex functional oxides, such as ferroelectric materials, laying the foundation for development and application of multiferroic materials. In particular, his work pioneered the development of ferroelectric perovskites, manganites with colossal magnetoresistance, and multiferroic oxides with great impact on the materials physics and with the potential for significant benefits for modern information technologies.

He is a Professor at the University of California Berkeley in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics. He also leads more than 500 scientists as the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Technologies at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has published over 540 papers in internationally recognized journals which have been cited more than 54,000 times. He has been issued 27 patents, and his approach for fabricating ferroelectric materials for random access memory has been employed by the world’s largest memory manufacturers.

== Training and Career ==

In 1980 Ramesh received his Bachelor in Science degree in Chemistry at Madras University in India. In 1983 he received his Bachelors degree in Metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He received his Doctorate in Materials Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987. He then served as a Postdoctoral Associate at the National Center of Electron Microscopy in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He went to Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) in 1989 and initiated research in several key electrical device technologies, including ferroelectric nonvolatile memories. Ramesh joined the University of Maryland in 1995 and was promoted to Professor in 1999 and Distinguished Professor in 2003. The following year he joined the University of California faculty in the Materials Science and Engineering and Physics departments, and now serves as Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Energy Technologies.

He joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004 as a Faculty Scientist and became Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Energy Technologies in 2014. In his capacity as ALD, he serves as a strategic leader for three Laboratory Divisions focused on Energy Technologies. The Energy Technologies Area conducts research for the U.S. Department of Energy other federal entities, as well as state governments, with a focus on California and the private sector.

Ramesh served under Energy Secretary Chu as the founding Director of the SunShot Initiative, which aimed to bring the cost of solar electricity down to grid parity by the end of the decade. One significant impact of his role as the director has been to strengthen the scientific foundations for solar energy research to elucidate the complex science underpinning this technology. Later he also served in a leadership position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

== Ferroelectric Thin Film Nonvolatile Memory ==

Ramesh pioneered the development of thin film ferroelectric materials for random access memory (FRAMS), first at Bellcore’s Red Bank, New Jersey facility, and then at the University of Maryland. These efforts paved the way for a reliable, high-density memory technology. He was the first to demonstrate that conducting oxide electrodes eliminate the 30-year old problem of polarization fatigue, achieved through careful control of the physics of the electrode-ferroelectric interface (Appl. Phys. Lett., 1992; Appl. Phys. Lett., 1993). This was a critical step in the development of reliable FRAM devices and became used pervasively by many semiconductor companies such as Fujitsu, which has operated the world’s largest FRAM production line, as well as Texas Instruments and others, directly benefiting technology worldwide.

Ramesh’s subsequent work explored the fundamental limits of switching dynamics and demonstrated the fastest switching speed in ferroelectric thin films, another key element that enabled high speed, nonvolatile random access memories. His work has also demonstrated a novel approach to create high density ferroelectric capacitors directly on the structure of silicon complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (Si-CMOS) through the introduction of novel conducting barrier layers (see “Ferroelectric capacitor heterostructure and method of making same,” U.S. 5479317 A, 1994). Ramesh holds over 20 patents in the field of ferroelectric thin films and devices.