Schmitt, Rafael

Education

M.Sc. Materials Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2013.
B.Sc. Materials Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2011.

Publications

• Kubicek, M.; Schmitt, R.; Messerschmitt, F.; Rupp, J.L.M.
  Uncovering Two Competing Switching Mechanisms for Epitaxial and Ultra-Thin Strontium Titanate-Based Resistive Switching Bits
  ACS Nano, available online as early view (2015)
• Kranz, L., Gretener, C., Perrenoud, J., Jaeger, D., Gerstl, S. S. A., Schmitt, R., Buecheler, S. and Tiwari, A. N.
  Tailoring Impurity Distribution in Polycrystalline CdTe Solar Cells for Enhanced Minority Carrier Lifetime
  Advanced Energy Materials, 4, 7, (2014)
• L. Kranz , R. Schmitt , C. Gretener , J. Perrenoud , F. Pianezzi , A. R. Uhl , D. Keller , S. Buecheler , A. N. Tiwari
  Progress towards 14% Efficient CdTe Solar Cells in Substrate Configuration
  Proc. 39th IEEE Photovolt. Specialists Conf. (2013)
• Gretener, C.; Perrenoud, J.; Kranz, L.; Kneer, L.; Schmitt, R.; Buecheler, S.; Tiwari, A.
  CdTe/CdS thin film solar cells grown in substrate configuration
  Prog. Photovolt: Res. Appl., 21, 1580, (2013)
• Kranz, L.; Gretener, C.; Perrenoud, J.; Schmitt, R.; Pianezzi, F.; La Mattina, F.; Blösch, P.; Cheah, E.; Chirilă, A.; Fella, C.; Hagendorfer, H.; Jäger, T.; Nishiwaki, S.; Uhl, A.; Buecheler, S.; Tiwari, A.
  Doping of polycrystalline CdTe for high-efficiency solar cells on flexible metal foil
  Nature Comm. 4, Art.No.: 2306 (2013)

Awards

• European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) Young Scientist Award at the 2016 E-MRS Spring Meeting in Lille, France, 2016.
• Poster award at the 12^th International Symposium on Systems with Fast Ionic Transport (ISSFIT-12) in Kaunas, Lithuania, 2016.

Research

Rafael Schmitt is working on redox-based resistive switching for the application in non-volatile memories. This innovative type of Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM) is a promising candidate to replace current transistor-based random access memories. The investigated ReRAMs are consisting of binary oxide or perovskite thin films that are deposited using the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. The electrodes are processed in the clean room by means of microfabrication (photolithography).

His main focus is to realize multi-terminal resistive switches for a new type of nonvolatile logic circuits. In a further project, in collaboration with the Multifunctional Ferroic Materials group headed by Prof. Manfred Fiebig, he is investigating the relation between charge and mass transport and the band structure of oxides. Multilayers of different perovskites are epitaxially grown, characterized electrically and additionally analyzed by means of nonlinear laser optics. At a later stage, in-situ measurements combining the transport and spectroscopic measurements will be performed.