The Grainger College of Engineering

Alfred Y. Cho

Alfred Y. Cho
Alfred Y. Cho
To Alfred Y. Cho, in recognition of his pioneering work in the development of melocular beam epitaxy and its applications to microwave and optoelectronic devices.

Head, Electronics Materials Research Department, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey; Adjuct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinios, Urbana, Illinois

  • BS, Electrical Engineering, 1960
  • MS, Electrical Engineering, 1961
  • PhD, Electrical Engineering, 1968

Alfred Cho has been involved in significant research throughout his career. While employed at Ion Physics Corporation, he studied charged micron-size solid particles in intense electric fields to simulate micro-meteor impact. At TRW-Space Technology Laboratories he was engaged in research on high-current-density ion beams for ion propulsion, a thruster for space travel. He later turned to research in surface physics and conducted the first modulated atomic beam experiment using a quadrupole mass spectrometer to measure the absorption and desorption kinetics of various atomic and molecular beams interacting with a solid surface. Cho is the inventor of the crystal growth technology known as molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Practically every major research university and electronic materials research laboratory is now conducting MBE research. A significant contribution of MBE is the experimental generation of two-dimensional systems. With this technique, the growth of novel structures is possible with artificially shaped potential barriers by doped layers and compositional variations of multilayered heterostructures. The structures are expected to play an important role in the next generation of electronic devices. He is the author of over 175 technical papers and holds 38 patents on surface science and semiconductor devices related to MBE.

Current as of 1988.