About me

Hello, thanks for being here! This website is my personal research portfolio. If you are looking for my more general science education focused page, please do also check out chemystery.org where I discuss fundamental science. Feedback, inquiry, criticism is always welcome! For more details on my work please refer to my CV, publications, patents, and book chapters.

I am Shantanu Kallakuri, an M.S. graduate in Materials science & engineering from Cornell University. I completed my undergraduation from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, with an integrated B.E. in Chemical engineering and M.Sc. in Chemistry. I am currently a Senior Process Engineer at Applied Materials (AMAT) in their Santa Clara headquarters, where I develop bottom-up atomic deposition and etch processes for advanced node (<1.4nm) semiconductor microchips.

My focus at AMAT is distributed across atomic-layer epitaxy (ALE), plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) and atomic-layer etch (ALE), for ongoing inflections in transistors (GAAFET and HEMT) – the tiny electrical switches that form the bedrock of all modern electronics. These efforts are geared towards extending Moore’s law into 3D transistor architectures through crystalline monolayer growth, pristine interfaces, defect suppression, and surface passivation.

I have previously also worked at AMAT on plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD), and reactive-ion etching (RIE) for two applications: 1) to pattern, deposit, and etch photonic diffraction gratings (blazed, holographic) and waveguides for AR/VR, and 2) seam-free metal deposition in memory chips (DRAM, V-NAND). For details, please refer to my Google Scholar.

My research before AMAT has focused on synthesis & characterization of material systems like:
• Chiral self-assembling multiscale materials (Nature Materials)
• Precursors to amphiphilic aramid self-assemblies (follow-on work in Nature Nano)
• Catalytic Janus motile nanoparticles (Nature Communications and ACS Nano), and
• Conductive Polymers (CRC Press) and Porphyrin/Pthalocyanine photosensitizers

Please feel free to reach out if you share any mutual interests or would simply just like to talk! I love to discuss science at any time, or if you just need someone to hear you out.