Conal Murray

I joined the IBM Watson Research Center in 2000 as a Research Staff Member after completing my Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Materials Science and Engineering. Since that time, I've focused on the areas of loss mechanisms associated with quantum computing, and the micromechanics of semiconductor materials and structures.  My research includes applying and extending analytical models to incorporate edge effects and material anisotropy as well as numerical approaches such as those based on the boundary element method. Experimentally validating these models has involved extensive use of x-ray diffraction based techniques to assess strain distributions within back-end-of-line (BEOL) metallization structures and device-level silicon features. I'm a frequent visitor of several synchrotron facilities, such as the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource for both conventional and microbeam x-ray measurements. These studies have involved strained silicon-on-insulator (SOI) channels due to embedded source / drain stressors and the investigation of stress gradients within Cu films induced by capping (please see 'Publications' for more info).

Other areas of research that I've explored include soft error rate (SER) modeling of semiconductor structures, the development of silicide materials for advanced interconnect applications, and the interplay betweeen stress, microstructure and texture in BEOL metallization.

Current and Prior Positions

IBM
Research Staff Member
7/2000 - Present