Umberto Celano

Umberto Celano is an associate professor with Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. His research agenda focuses on nanoelectronics at the interface of condensed matter physics, materials analysis, and semiconductor technology. His group is currently engaged in studying fundamental processes underlying the operation of emerging devices, with emphasis on design and use of nanoscale analytical instruments for device reliability, failure analysis, and correlative metrology. As such, his work is inherently multidisciplinary in nature blending device physics and reliability, with materials science and metrology.

Previously, Umberto received his Ph.D. working with Prof. Wilfried Vandervorst at the University of Leuven - KU Leuven and imec (Belgium). Here, he got interested in materials analysis and semiconductor metrology with emphasis on scanning probe microscopies, working to establish a novel three-dimensional nanoscale imaging technique to study materials in confined volumes (this work got him the 2013 IEDM Roger Haken Award). Later, he joined imec as a permanent researcher, contributing in various roles to the development and characterization of materials for advanced CMOS (logic and memory). In 2018, he was a visiting scientist with the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials at Stanford University where he expanded his research interest to two-dimensional (2D) materials and nanophotonic. In 2019, he returned at imec as a principal member of technical staff and joined the faculty of science and technology at the University of Twente (Netherlands) as a part-time assistant professor.