Peter D. Persans
— Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
— Ph.D., Physics, University of Chicago, 1982
— M.S., Physics, University of Chicago, 1977
— B.S., Physics, Polytechnic Institute of New York, 1975

Career Highlights:
Persans began his career as a research physicist for Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories in 1981. He joined the Rensselaer faculty five years later as an assistant professor of physics and was promoted to full professor in 1998.

Persans was a member of the Rensselaer team that received the 1995 Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Faculty Development to Enhance Undergraduate Teaching and Learning from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA). He also earned the 2001 David M. Darrin Counseling Award from the Phalanx, the senior leadership honorary society at Rensselaer. He served as president of Rensselaer's Faculty Senate and is a member of the Center for Integrated Electronics (CIE).

The author of more than 150 professional articles, Persans' society memberships include the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, and the Optical Society of America.

Research Areas:
Persans has contributed to the understanding of the growth and optical and electronic properties of amorphous and nanocrystalline semiconductors. He made early contributions to the understanding of optoelectronic properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon for photovoltaic and transistor applications. He was a co-developer of periodic amorphous multilayers and developed several techniques for the study of amorphous interfaces using these structures. Persans has also contributed to the understanding of optical, vibrational, and thermophysical properties of semiconductor quantum dots grown in glass. His recent work includes the study of the nature of excitonic wavefunctions and defects in IV-VI quantum dots by the use of modulation and nonlinear spectroscopy.

Persans also led the Rensselaer effort to develop and characterize thin film optical waveguides and photonic nanostructures for optical interconnects. The emphasis was to identify high performance beam-steering materials that are fully compatible with back end of the line processing of CMOS devices. A notable achievement of this group is development of a fabrication approach for self-aligned micromirrors.

Selected Publications:
GT Dalakos, JL Plawsky, PD Persans, "Smoothing of rough a-Si : H surfaces by ion-assisted deposition and sputter erosion", Materials Letters, 60, (1): 15-18, (2006).

Ponoth, S.S.; Agarwal, N.T.; Persans, P.D.; Plawsky, J.L., "Fabrication of micromirrors with self-aligned metallization using silicon back-end-of-the-line processes", in Thin Solid Films, v472, 169-79 (2005).

S. Ponoth, N. Agarwal, P. D. Persans, J. L. Plawsky, "Plasma silicon oxide - silica xerogel based planar slab optical waveguides", J Vac Sci Technol B,22, 902 (2004).

S. Ponoth, N. T. Agarwal, P. D. Persans, and J. L. Plawsky, "Fabrication of controlled sidewall angles in thin films using isotropic etches", J. Vac. Soc. Tech. B , 21, 1240, (2003).

A. Jain, S. Rogojevic, S. Ponoth, N. Agarwal, I Mathew, W.N. Gill, P. Persans, M. Tomozawa, J. L. Plawsky, and E. Simonyi, "Porous Materials as Low-k Dielectrics for Electronic and Optical Interconnects", Thin Solid Films, 398, 513 (2001).

J. Schroeder and P. D. Persans, "Spectroscopy of II-VI nanocrystals at high pressures and temperatures", in press, J. Lum.,70, 69-84 (1996)

H. Yükselici, P. D. Persans, T. M. Hayes, "Optical studies of growth of Cd1-xZnxS nanocrystals in borosilicate glass" Phys. Rev. B, 52, 11763, (1995).

A. Tu and P. Persans, "Raman scattering as a probe of composition in II-VI ternary semiconductor-glass composites," Applied Physics Letters, 58, 1506, (1991).

P. Persans, A.F. Ruppert and B. Abeles, "Crystallization Kinetics of Amorphous Si/SiO2 Superlattice Structures", J. of Non Cryst. Solids, 102, 130 (1988).

C. Wronski, P. Persans and B. Abeles, "Electrical Transport in Hydrogenated Ge/Si Superlattices" Appl. Phys. Lett., 49, 569 (1986)

H. Fritzsche, C.C. Tsai and P. Persans, "Amorphous Semiconducting Silicon Hydride Alloys", Solid State Technology, 21, 55, (1978).

Contact Information:
Peter D. Persans
Science Center, Room 1C22
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 Eighth Street
Troy, N.Y. 12180 USA
(518) 276-2934

E-mail: persap@rpi.edu
www.rpi.edu/~persa

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