The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) said on Apr. 8 that they selected Shim Woo-young, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Yonsei University, as the winner of the Korea Scientist and Engineer of the Month award for April.
The Korea Scientist and Engineer of the Month award is given monthly to researchers who have contributed to the advancement of science and technology through creative and outstanding research achievements over the past three years. The winner receives the vice minister's award from the Ministry of Science and ICT and 10 million won in prize money.
Professor Shim presented new possibilities in next-generation semiconductors by realizing III-V compound semiconductors with a new crystal structure not found in nature.
III-V semiconductors are compound semiconductors made by combining group 3 and group 5 elements in the periodic table. Unlike semiconductors made of a single element such as silicon or germanium, they have the advantage of allowing the design of physical and electrical properties tailored to purpose by combining different elements. However, existing III-V semiconductors, while strong in fast electron transport, had almost no structural leeway for ion movement, limiting the implementation of new electronic functions.
To overcome these limitations, Professor Shim proposed a new semiconductor structural concept called "cation-eutaxy," in which cations can move under an electric field. Applying a topochemical etching technique that selectively removes only specific elements, the team succeeded in forming van der Waals gaps through which ions can move. This demonstrated that both the electrical properties of a semiconductor and memory functions can be realized simultaneously within a single material.
This achievement also carries significant implications for next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors. In particular, by demonstrating the potential of the compute-in-memory approach, which performs memory and computation within a single material, it is being evaluated as a foundational technology that can greatly reduce energy consumption during AI computation. At the same time, because it can emulate synaptic functions in which connection strength changes depending on signal intensity and timing, similar to neural networks in the human brain, it is expected to be applicable to neuromorphic AI device development.
Professor Shim Woo-young said, "It is all the more meaningful that a domestic research team was the first in the world to propose a new semiconductor material not found in nature," adding, "We will continue to pursue challenging research so that Korea can lead new materials research going forward."