who currently holds the John C. C. Fan family Distinguished Chair Professorship in the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University. He also has the appointment of Distinguished
Visiting Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
After graduating with distinction from India’s top institution
(IIT Kanpur) in 1969, Professor Narayan continued
his studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
and obtained his MS (1970) and PhD (1971) degrees in a
record time of two years. Based on his MS and PhD theses,
he published over a dozen leading papers related to
in-situ studies of defects and diffusion modeling in leading
archival journals, initiating a long lasting research
career, mostly in the area of functional materials. To
date Dr. Narayan has published over 500 journal papers
and numerous contributions to conference proceedings.
He has also received 35 patents. His research publications
have been quoted in over 11,000 citations with
h-index of over 51.
After graduation, Dr. Narayan worked (1971–72) as
Research Metallurgist at Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, before joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory
in 1972 as Member of Research Staff. At ORNL, he
rose to the level of Senior Scientist and Group Leader of
Thin Films and Electron Microscopy Programs, before
joining in 1983 North Carolina State University as Senior
Professor and Director of Microelectronics Center
of North Carolina. He was appointed Distinguished
University Professor in 1991, and Endowed Fan family
Distinguished Chair Professorship in 2001. During
1990–92, Professor Narayan also served as Director of
Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation.
There he initiated a successful Program on Advanced
Materials and Processing, for which he
received the NSF Distinguished Service Award. Professor
Narayan’s research covers all of the critical elements
of advanced materials: synthesis and processing; nanoscale
characterization; structure-property correlations
and modeling.
His pioneering experiments at Berkeley provided first
direct evidence for the presence of anion-cation vacancy
pairs (Schottky defect) and anion-cation interstitial pairs
(New defect) in ionic crystals such as magnesium oxide.
He showed that these defects diffuse as pairs and obtained
activation energies for bulk diffusion and pipe
diffusion along dislocations and grain boundaries. He
also discovered new a <100>{100} dislocations as result
of condensation of these vacancy type defects. At
ORNL he used this fundamental understanding to form
colloids (nanoclusters) of metals in MgO, and invented
novel metal-ceramic (nano) composites with improved
mechanical, electrical and thermal properties.
Professor Narayan’s expertise in defects and diffusion
was well suited for the next phase of his career at ORNL
on ion implantation, solid phase epitaxy, rapid thermal
annealing, and formation of supersaturated semiconductor
alloys. He established atomic structure of displacement
cascades and developed an amorphization model
for semiconductors based upon his careful experiments
which led to the determination of critical damage energy for amorphization (12eV/atom for silicon). His work on
solid-phase-epitaxy kinetics led to the well-known crystallization
model and the discovery of supersaturated
semiconductor alloys with solubility limits exceeding as
much as 500 over the equilibrium values, a critical step
in ion implantation doping for ultra-shallow p-n junctions
in current and future devices.
Narayan and his coworkers at ORNL pioneered
pulsed laser annealing methods, useful for removing
ion implantation damage and creating “defect-free”
supersaturated semiconductor alloys. These seminal
experiments on interfacial instability also have led to
theoretical models to establish melting as the mechanism
of laser annealing. Narayan also invented laser induced
diffusion to form highly efficient ultra-shallow p-n junctions
and low-cost laser-diffused solar cells. Subsequent
research in laser (transient thermal) processing resulted
in the discovery of flame annealing and rapid thermal
processing, which constitutes the backbone of current
device fabrication.
Narayan’s critical understanding of laser-solid interactions
led to nonequilibrium pulsed laser evaporation
at higher laser energies, and deposition of thin films.
His group at NCSU (along with Bell Labs) published
first seminal paper on pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of
thin films of high-Tc superconductors in 1987. Since
then, PLD technique has become one of the most popular
techniques for thin film deposition along with
MOCVD and MBE. The PLD is proving to be an elegant
nonequilibrium technique, lending itself to higher
quality films of multicomponent systems at lower thermal
budgets with fewer processing steps.
In other research areas, Dr. Narayan discovered domain
matching epitaxy, a new paradigm for thin film
epitaxy across the misfit scale, which is based upon
matching of integral multiples of lattice planes across
the film-substrate interface. This is a crucial step in the
fabrication of GaN based light emitting diodes on sapphire
and silicon substrates where lattice misfit can
range from 14–20%. Narayan also invented novel
“Nano Pocket” LEDs where carriers are quantum confined
by introducing a thickness variation to control the
bandgap of GaInN/GaN quantum wells. The thickness
variation is introduced during thin film growth as a result
of misfit strain between GaInN and GaN layers.
Using this paradigm of epitaxy across the misfit scale,
it is possible to integrate functionality of new materials
on the silicon chip and create smart devices for sensing,
manipulation and rapid response. In the area of new
materials, Dr. Narayan discovered 1-2-4 (Y1Ba2Cu4O8)
super- conductors Tc > 80–100K and 1-2-4 and 1-2-3
(Y1Ba2Cu4O7-) composites with enhanced flux-pinning.
He discovered ZnMgO and ZnCdO alloys for LEDs
and doped ZnO based materials as transparent conductors,
and pioneered epitaxial growth of diamond thin
films on Si(100) and Cu (100) substrates. The pulse laser
method for synthesis and processing of continuous diamond
thin films on nondiamond substrates, such as
Cu(100), makes it possible to create hydrogen-free diamondlike
carbon films.
During various stages of his research career,
Dr. Narayan developed atomic-resolution electron
microscopy techniques to study the atomic structure of
defects (dislocations) and interfaces, which are based
upon a three-step interactive procedure: calculation
simulation and comparison with experimental results.
Professor Narayan’s outstanding research contributions
have earned him many awards and recognitions.
He is an elected Fellow of MRS (inaugural Class),
TMS, APS, AAAS, ASM, and a Fellow of the National
Academy of Sciences in India. His awards include the
US-DOE Outstanding Research Award, Three IR-100
Awards, Honorary Member MRS-I, ASM Gold Medal,
and Edward DeMille Campbell Lecture and Prize, IIT/K
Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2005 at the Annual
TMS Meeting in San Francisco a symposium was held
in Dr. Narayan’s honor.
The Acta Materialia Gold Medal is awarded annually
by the Board of Governors of Acta Materialia, Inc. with
partial financial support from Elsevier, the publisher of
Acta journals. Nominees are solicited each year from the
Governors, the Cooperating Societies and Sponsoring
Societies of Acta Materialia, Inc. based on demonstrated
ability and leadership in materials research. A
distinguished panel of international judges makes the
determination of the winner. The Award consists of
the gold medal, donated by the publisher, Elsevier, an
inscribed certificate, and a check for a sum of money
that constitutes the Board’s contribution to the award
winner.
There will be an International Conference on
Advances in Nanostructured Materials and Applications
(designated as The 2011 Acta Materialia Gold Medal
symposium honoring Professor Narayan), sponsored
by ASM International and TMS at the Materials
Science & Technology 2011 Conference & Exhibition,
October 16–20, 2011, Columbus, Ohio. The Acta
Materialia Gold Medal will be presented at the ASM
Awards Ceremony on October 18, 2011. The Materials
Research Society will hold an Invited Symposium on
Frontiers of Thin Film Epitaxy and Nanostructured
Materials, in Professor Narayan’s Gold Medal honor,
at the 2011 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco,
April 25–29, 2011.