As a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University, Richard Kiehl explores new device concepts, circuit architectures and self-assembly techniques for the development of nanometer-scale electronics for information processing, signal processing and sensing applications. His work draws on extensive experience at corporate research labs in the development of high performance electronics exploiting, compound semiconductors, heterostructure design and novel fabrication methods. His research includes the investigation of nanoscale circuitry based on the dynamics of electron tunneling and electron spin. His studies include novel circuitry based on single-electron tunneling, negative differential resistance in organic molecules and local coupling in magnetic nanoparticle arrays. His recent interests include electronic properties of topological insulators and proximity induced ferromagnetism in graphene for potential device applications.
Prior to joining ASU in 2015, Kiehl held faculty positions at Stanford University, the University of Minnesota and the University of California at Davis, where he served as ECE Department chair. He held visiting faculty positions during sabbaticals at Columbia University, New York University and Stanford. He was a Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, AT&T Bell Laboratories and IBM Research and was an Assistant Department Director at Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.
Kiehl’s research is diverse and interdisciplinary, involving collaborations with faculty and students in electrical and computer engineering, physics, materials science, chemistry and chemical engineering.
- Ph.D. Purdue University 1974
- Master of Science, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University 1970
- Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University 1970
Kiehl's doctoral dissertation was on the physics and electrical behavior of transferred-electron microwave devices.
Richard Kiehl explores new device concepts, circuit architectures and fabrication techniques for the development of nanoscale electronics for information processing, signal processing, and sensing applications. He draws on extensive experience at corporate research labs in developing high performance electronics based on new materials, novel structures and unconventional fabrication techniques for GaAs-based and Si-based heterostructure devices.
Kiehl explores nanofabrication using DNA as a programmable scaffolding for self-assembling nanoparticles, molecules and other components into electronic circuitry – an approach that offers integration density and precision far beyond that possible with lithographic techniques.
Kiehl also explores non-Boolean computing architectures based on radically different approaches in which the dynamics of electron tunneling or of electron spin are used in locally connected networks, thereby providing functionality beyond that of conventional circuits.
To help foster activities in these areas, he created the Molecular Nanoscience Alliance for Interdisciplinary Studies and Activities (MONALISA) at the University of Minnesota. He was Theme Leader for “Nanoscale Architectures and Information Processing Paradigms” in the SRC/MARCO center on Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics (FENA – Phase I, 2004-2010) and Principal Investigator for the DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) on “Biologically Assembled Quantum Electronic Arrays” in collaboration with nine faculty at six different universities,
Kiehl’s research continues to exploit novel materials, chemistry and physics for advanced information processing, signal processing and sensing applications.
Selected Journal Papers
Selected Conference Presentations
G. Song, M. Ranjbar, N. Rizzo, D. Daughton, and R. Kiehl, “Proximity Induced Ferromagnetism in Graphene from a Magnetic Nanoparticle Array (INVITED)”, Workshop on Innovative Nanoscale Devices and Systems (WINDS), Kohala Coast, Hawaii, Nov. 26 - Dec. 1, 2017.
G. Song, M. Ranjbar, Z. Huang, and R. Kiehl, “Optimization of Graphene Field-Sensor Operation near the Charge Neutrality Point”, 62nd Annual Conf. on Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, Pittsburge, Pa., Nov. 6-10, 2017.
R. J. Macedo, S. E. Harrison, T. S. Dorofeeva, J. S. Harris, and R. A. Kiehl, “Current-Voltage Characteristics Along Terraces in MBE-Grown Bi2Te3” 2014 American Physical Society Meeting, Denver Colo. March 3-7, 2014.
S. Hihath, P. M. Riechers, J. Chen, C. B. Murray, R. A. Kiehl, “TEM Analysis of Fe3O4/GaAs hybrid ferromagnet/semiconductor nanostructures”, 2012 MSA Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting, Phoenix, Ariz., July 29 – August 2, 2012.
P. M. Riechers, J. Chen, C. B. Murray, R. A. Kiehl, “Fe3O4/GaAs hybrid ferromagnet/semiconductor nanostructures,” 53rd Electronic Materials Conf., Santa Barbara, Calif., June 22-24, 2011.
P. M. Riechers and R. A. Kiehl, CNN Implemented by Nonlinear Phase Dynamics in Nanoscale Processes, 12th IEEE Intl. Workshop Cellular Nanoscale Networks and Applications, Feb. 3-5, Berkeley, Calif, 2010.
M. A. Hollister, J. D. Le, G. Xiao, X. Lu, and R. A. Kiehl, “High performance ZnO nanowire FET with ITO contacts,” 2007 IEEE 65th Annual Device Research Conf., pp. 113-114, Notre Dame, Ind., June 18-20, 2007.
J. D. Le, Y. Y. Pinto, K. Musier-Forsyth, N. C. Seeman, T. A. Taton, and R. A. Kiehl, “DNA-based self-assembly methods for nanoscale integrated circuits,” Foundations of Nanoscience: Self-Assembled Architectures and Devices (FNANO06), Snowbird, Utah, April 23-27, 2006.
R. A. Kiehl , J. D. Le , P. Candra , R. C. Hoye , T. R. Hoye, “Charge storage based hysteretic negative-differential-resistance in metal-molecule-metal junctions,” Session H36, 2006 Amer. Phys. Soc. March Meeting, Baltimore, Md, March 13-17, 2006. R. A. Kiehl, J. D. Le, K. Musier-Forsyth,
Y. Y. Pinto, N. C. Seeman, T. A. Taton, “Patterning, templating, and self-assembly by nanocomponent hybridization to 2-D DNA scaffolding (Invited),” Paper COLL 59, 231 st Amer. Chem. Soc. National Meeting, Atlanta, Ga, March 26-30, 2006.
R. A. Kiehl, P. Candra, J. D. Le, J. A. Skarie, “Minimization of interface oxide in alkanethiold/GaAs self-assembled monolayers”, 2005 Electronic Materials Conference, Paper HH8, Santa Barbara, Calif., June 22-24, 2005.
R. A. Kiehl, J. A. Skarie, T. R. Hoye, J. D. Le, P. Candra, R. Hoye, “Bias-Sweep Effects in the Electrical Characteristics of Hg-Alkanethiol//Oligo(Phenlyene-Ethynylene)-Au Heterobilayer Molecular Junctions”, 2005 Electronic Materials Conference, Paper HH2, Santa Barbara, Calif., June 22-24, 2005.
Y. Y. Pinto, J. D. Le, N. C. Seeman, K. Musier-Forsyth, T. A. Taton, and R. A. Kiehl, “Hierarchical self-assembly of nanoparticle and nanowire arrays by 2D DNA scaffolding,” Foundations of Nanoscience: Self-Assembled Architectures and Devices (FNANO05), Snowbird, Utah, April 24-28, 2005.
Y. Y. Pinto, J. D. Le, N. C. Seeman, K. Musier-Forsyth, T. A. Taton, and R. A. Kiehl, “DNA-assembled nanocomponent arrays with hierarchically controlled intercomponent spacing,” 2005 Spring Meeting, Mat. Res. Soc., San Francisco, Calif., Mar 28 – Apr 1, 2005.
J. D. Le, Y. Y. Pinto, N. C. Seeman, K. Musier-Forsyth, T. A. Taton, and R. A. Kiehl, “Templated growth of metallic nanowire arrays by 2D DNA scaffolding,” 2005 Spring Meeting, Mat. Res. Soc., San Francisco, Calif., Mar 28 – Apr 1, 2005.
Invited Talks
R. A. Kiehl, “Negative differential resistance phenomena in molecular metal-insulator-metal junctions (Invited),” Session V39, 2007 Amer. Phys. Soc. March Meeting, Denver , Co. , March 5-9, 2007.
R. A. Kiehl, “DNA-directed assembly of nanocomponents for nanoelectronics, nanophotonics and nanosensing (Invited),” SPIE Optics East, Boston, Mass., Sept. 9-12, 2007
R. A. Kiehl, J. D. Le, K. Musier-Forsyth, Y. Y. Pinto, N. C. Seeman, T. A. Taton, “Patterning, templating, and self-assembly by nanocomponent hybridization to 2-D DNA scaffolding (Invited),” Paper COLL 59, 231 st Amer. Chem. Soc. National Meeting, Atlanta, Ga, March 26-30, 2006
R. A. Kiehl, J. D. Le, K. Musier-Forsyth, Y. Y. Pinto, N. C. Seeman, and T. A. Taton, “DNA Assembly of Component Arrays for Nanoscale Electronics (Invited),” IEEE Conf. Nanotechnology (IEEE-NANO 2005), Nagoya, Japan, July 11-15, 2005.
R. A. Kiehl, “Biologicially inspired nanoelectronics: Devices, circuits, and fabrication (Invited),” presented at the 9th MEL-ARI Nanotechnology Information Devices Workshop, Catania, Italy, February 6-8, 2002.
R. A. Kiehl, T. Yang, and L.O. Chua, “Tunneling-phase logic based cellular nonlinear networks,” presented at the 15th Europ. Conf. Circuit Theory and Design (Invited),” Espoo, Finland, August 28-31, 2001.
R. A. Kiehl, “Biologically inspired nanoelectronics (Invited),” presented at the 1st US/Korean/Japanese Conf. On Nanostructure Science and Technology, Seoul, Korea, April 23-25, 2001.
R. A. Kiehl, “Nanoelectronic array architectures (Invited),” 4th Intl. Workshop on Quantum Functional Devices,” Kanazawa, Japan, Nov. 15-17, 2000.
R. A. Kiehl, “Single electron device research: some directions and challenges (Invited),” 1999 Device Research Conference, Santa Barbara, Calif., June 28-30, 1999
Courses
2026 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2026 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
| MSE 792 | Research |
2025 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2025 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2024 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2024 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
| MSE 792 | Research |
2023 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2023 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
| MSE 792 | Research |
2022 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| MSE 792 | Research |
2022 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EEE 790 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 592 | Research |
| EEE 493 | Honors Thesis |
| EEE 499 | Individualized Instruction |
| EEE 690 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 595 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| EEE 599 | Thesis |
| EEE 792 | Research |
| EEE 799 | Dissertation |
| EEE 595 | Continuing Registration |
| MSE 792 | Research |
| EEE 590 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 795 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| EEE 493 | Honors Thesis |
| EEE 499 | Individualized Instruction |
| MSE 792 | Research |
2021 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EEE 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| EEE 493 | Honors Thesis |
| EEE 499 | Individualized Instruction |
| EEE 590 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 595 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 599 | Thesis |
| EEE 690 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 790 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 792 | Research |
| EEE 795 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 799 | Dissertation |
| EEE 592 | Research |
| MSE 792 | Research |
| EEE 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| EEE 493 | Honors Thesis |
| EEE 499 | Individualized Instruction |
| EEE 499 | Individualized Instruction |
2021 Summer
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| EEE 690 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 590 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 790 | Reading and Conference |
| EEE 592 | Research |
| EEE 595 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 599 | Thesis |
| EEE 792 | Research |
| EEE 795 | Continuing Registration |
| EEE 799 | Dissertation |
| EEE 590 | Reading and Conference |
Louis John Schnell Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota..
Life Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Citation: "For contributions to heterostructure field-effect devices and circuits"
Co-editor of the book “High-Speed Heterostructure Devices” (Academic Press, Semiconductors and Semimetals Treatise)
Served as Associate Editor for the journal IEEE Electron Device Letters.
Member, American Physical Society
Member, American Chemical Society
Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Kiehl received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1970 and his Ph. D. from Purdue in 1974. His doctoral dissertation was on the physics of transferred-electron microwave devices.
The first 20 years of his career were spent at corporate research laboratories -- Sandia National Laboratories, AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM Research and Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. -- where his work was primarily concerned with advanced compound semiconductor devices. Kiehl then joined Stanford University as Acting Professor of Electrical Engineering and focused his research on nanoelectronic devices and circuits. He also collaborated in a project with other Stanford faculty to investigate the extension of silicon CMOS technology beyond conventional limits and was associated with Stanford’s US-Asia Technology Management Center.
In 1999, Kiehl joined the University of Minnesota as Full Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. At Minnesota he explored concepts for exploiting molecular approaches to electronics. He initiated a study to assess the usefulness of certain molecular junctions for device applications and was principle investigator in work aimed at exploiting DNA for precision self-assembly of nanoelectronic circuits. His team was first to demonstrate the programmable positioning of inorganic nanocomponents by DNA scaffolding. He also played a leadership role in nanotechnology activities at UMN, including efforts to create an interdisciplinary research and education center, and was theme leader for a multi-university research team on “nano-architectures” for a national, Industry-sponsored research center.
In 2008, Kiehl joined the University of California, Davis, as Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. As Department Chair, he recruited new faculty in three strategic areas: bio-EE, terahertz electronics, and energy. He extended his personal research activities toward self-assembled ferromagnet/semiconductor structures and the study of the electrical characteristics of topological insulators for spintronic circuitry.
In 2014, Kiehl joined the Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering department at Arizona State University, where he is investigating the integration of magnetic nanoparticle arrays and graphene for the development of spintronic devices and circuits.
Kiehl has played an active role in the support of the international professional and research communities. He has served on the technical program committees for the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, the Device Research Conference, the Workshop on Compound Semiconductor Microwave Materials and Devices, the Optical Society Topical Meeting on Picosecond Electronics and Optoelectronics and the Silicon Nanoelectronics Workshop. He served as session chairman at the Electrochemical Society Meeting, the International Conference on Solid State Devices and Materials (Japan), and the JRDC International Symposium on Nanostructures & Quantum Effects (Japan). He co-chaired the Joint MARCO-NCN Workshop on Nano-Scale Reversible Computing. He organized the DARPA Workshop on Optoelectronic Microwave Devices, the Advanced Heterostructure Transistors Conference, and the Workshop on III-V Device Instabilities.
After earning his Ph.D. at Purdue in 1974, Richard Kiehl joined Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a Member of Technical Staff. While at Sandia, he worked on semiconductor devices for radar applications. He pioneered research on optically-controlled microwave devices based on the effect of light on the carrier dynamics in avalanche devices and was first to demonstrate modulation, phase-locking, and switching of active microwave semiconductor devices by optical techniques. This approach provided the capability for high-speed control of microwave signals with signal isolation levels well beyond those of electronic methods and helped to nucleate the field of “microwave photonics”.
In 1980, Kiehl joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, as a Member of Technical Staff and began research on compound semiconductor devices for high-speed communications applications. He was a leading contributor to Bell Labs research in heterostructure electronics. He led the phase of the Bell Labs project on heterostructure field-effect transistors that first demonstrated a functional integrated circuit in this technology (HEMT/MODFET). He initiated research on CMOS-like circuitry based on compound semiconductors and was first to demonstrate the integration of complementary n- and p-channel heterostructure FET’s. He was also co-inventor of concepts for resonant-tunneling transistors. His work in these areas had a major impact on research on compound semiconductor devices in many laboratories.
In 1985, Kiehl joined IBM as a Research Staff Member at the T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. At IBM he focused his work on realizing heterostructure-based CMOS-like circuitry in III-V and Si/SiGe materials for computer applications. He carried out a wide range of studies, including bandgap engineering for p-channel devices, vertical integration of complementary devices, and advanced fabrication processes in III-V materials. This work resulted in the demonstration of complementary AlGaAs/GaAs circuits with record speeds at low supply voltages. This pioneering work helped to provide a foundation for today’s leading-edge R&D on the incorporation of III-V materials in CMOS chips.
In 1993, Kiehl joined Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., Atsugi, Japan, as Assistant Director of the Quantum Electron Devices Laboratory, where he directed research aimed at exploiting physical phenomena in ultrasmall structures, demonstrated strain-directed patterning of nanoparticles in a semiconductor and proposed logic circuitry based on phase states in single electron tunneling devices.