Azad Naeemi has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his research project entitled "Physical Models and Experimental Validation for High-Frequency Multilayer Graphene Interconnects." Dr. Naeemi has been an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) since 2008.

The objective of this program is to develop experimentally-validated physical models for graphene interconnects and to optimize and benchmark them against conventional metallic interconnects. This research will provide the first unified electromagnetic/quantum mechanical model to analyze high-frequency signal transport in nanomaterials in general and in multilayer graphene interconnects in particular. Existing full-wave electromagnetic field simulators cannot capture the multi-physical nature of signal transport in nano materials.

This research will potentially enable the design and development of faster and more energy efficient on-chip interconnects using two dimensional nanomaterials such as graphene. On chip wires are considered a major challenge in the quest for making ever smaller switches because of their delay and power dissipation.

After graduating with his Ph.D. in ECE from Georgia Tech in 2003, Dr. Naeemi worked as a research engineer in the Microelectronics Research Center for five years. He is a member of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors Technical Working Group on Interconnects. In 2010, he received a Semiconductor Research Corporation Inventor Recognition Award.