Zetian Mi receives AVS 2025 NSTD Nanotechnology Recognition Award

Zetian Mi, Pallab K. Bhattacharya Collegiate Professor of Engineering, received the 2025 American Vacuum Society (AVS) Nanoscale Science and Technology Division (NSTD) Nanotechnology Recognition Award for his “outstanding contributions to growth of wide bandgap semiconductor materials.”

“I am truly honored to receive this award and sincerely thank the committee for their selection. This recognition is not only a personal honor, but a tribute to my students, team members, collaborators, and supporters. I am deeply grateful for their dedication, partnership, and the journey we’ve shared together,” said Mi.

One decades-long branch of Mi’s research focuses on the growth and characterization of low dimensional, wide bandgap semiconductor materials, with a special focus on gallium nitride. In 2019, his group demonstrated epitaxial growth of single-crystalline wurtzite ScAlN, followed in 2021 by the first molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of single-crystalline high quality ferroelectric III-V semiconductors. In 2022, Mi’s group developed the first reliable, scalable method for growing single layers of hexagonal boron nitride on graphene using MBE. In 2023, they scaled down the ferroelectric semiconductor materials to just five nanometers thick and demonstrated a ScAlN/AlGaN/GaN ferroelectric HEMT transistor. Last year, they updated the leading model on polarization in gallium nitride to optimize wide bandgap semiconductors.

The work is ongoing, with over $10M awarded in recent grants through MURI and DARPA programs. These projects will help advance and scale these semiconductor materials using current silicon technology, for use in next-generation electronics and quantum technologies. Mi has co-founded two companies with semiconductor technologies developed in his research: NX Fuels and NS Nanotech.

As an international expert on the topic, Mi also served as co-editor of two recent books on up-and-coming semiconductor materials: “2D Excitonic Materials and Devices” and “Emerging Ferroelectric Materials and Devices.”

Mi was recently named Pallab K. Bhattacharya Collegiate Professor of Engineering in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the areas of research, innovation, education, and leadership. He has also received the Nick Holonyak, Jr. Award (2025), the ISCS Quantum Devices Award (2024), the IEEE Nanotechnology Council Distinguished Lecturer Award (2023), the Science and Engineering Award from W. M. Keck Foundation (2020), and the IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer Award (2021). Within the University of Michigan, he has received the Wise-Najafi Prize for Engineering Excellence in the Miniature World (2025), the Rexford E. Hall Innovation Excellence Award (2024), and the David E. Liddle Research Excellence Award (2021). He is a fellow of Optica, IEEE, APS, and SPIE.

Mi will give a plenary lecture and formally accept the award at the 71st Annual AVS International Symposium and Exhibition (AVS71), which will take place September 21-26, 2025, in Charlotte, NC.