Faculty Directory

EDUCATION

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Physics, Brown University, 1971-73
• Ph.D., Physics, University of Chicago, 1971
• M.S., Physics, University of Chicago, 1967
• B.A., Physics, Dartmouth College, 1966

BACKGROUND

Dr. Rubloff has published more than 200 papers, holds 21 patents and holds 6 IBM Invention Achievement Awards. He won the AVS Gaede-Langmuir Prize in 2000 "for inventive application of surface science and vacuum technology to the semiconductor industry, and for fostering an effective bridge between AVS research and manufacturing." This award was established 1977 to recognize and encourage outstanding discoveries and inventions in the sciences and technologies of interest to the AVS. He is a Fellow of APS and AVS. His research has included solid state physics, surface physics and chemistry, interfaces, semiconductor materials and processing science and technology, process diagnostics and modeling, manufacturing science, combinatorial materials science, biomaterials and bioMEMS. His semiconductor process research has emphasized the elucidation of chemical and physical mechanisms involved in surface cleaning, thermal oxidation, chemical vapor deposition, and plasma etching, and in pursing these directions he pioneered the exploitation of ultrahigh vacuum process environments and their integration with in-situ surface and interface diagnostics.

Dr. Rubloff received his B.A. in Physics magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1966, his M.S. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1971 in Physics from the University of Chicago. He held a postdoctoral position in Physics at Brown University from 1971 to 1973. In 1973 he joined IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY, as a Research Staff Member in the Physical Sciences Department, were he worked on surface and interface science. In 1984-85 he served as Technical Assistant to the IBM Research Vice-President for Logic and Memory, and from 1985 to 1991 he continued his research while serving in several capacities as Manager of exploratory materials and processing in the Silicon Technology Department. From 1992-1993 he was Manager of Thin Film Process Modeling in the Manufacturing Research Department. From 1992 to 1997 he was also Professor Adjunct in Electrical Engineering at Yale University.

He joined academia in 1993 as Associate Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processing and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, focusing on real-time process sensing, simulation, optimization, and control.

In 1996 he joined the University of Maryland as Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research. He served as Director of the Institute from 1996 to 2001. In 2004 he was named Minta Martin Professor of Engineering and assumed the position of founding Director of the Maryland NanoCenter. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP), the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Dr. Rubloff was the founding Chairman of the AVS Manufacturing Science and Technology Group from 1992-1997 and continues to serve on its Executive Committee. He has been a member of the Metrology Technical Working Group for the SIA's National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors since its inception in 1994. He has been active in professional society work, including the Board of Directors of the AVS, Executive Committees of the AVS Electronic Materials and Processing Division, the APS Materials Physics Division, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. He has long been active in civic affairs, included 11 years service as an elected Member, Vice-President, and President of a local Board of Education in New York State.

Prior to joining the faculty of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, Professor Rubloff served as the associate director of North Carolina State University's NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processing and as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Yale University. Before pursuing a career in academia, he served for 20 years in a variety of research and management positions at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

Professor Rubloff is a past director of the Institute for Systems Research, of which he remains an active member.

HONORS AND AWARDS

• AVS Gaede-Langmuir Prize, 2000 “for the inventive application of surface science and vacuum technology to the semiconductor industry, and for fostering an effective bridge between AVS research and manufacturing”. This award is presented biennially “to recognize and encourage outstanding discoveries and inventions in the sciences and technologies of interest to the American Vacuum Society."
• Fellow of the American Physical Society (1986)
• Fellow of AVS (formerly American Vacuum Society) (1993)
• Six IBM Invention Achievement Awards
• IBM Research Division Award for MCP Chromium Metallurgy, 1986

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• APS 
• AVS
• IEEE
• MRS

Professor Rubloff has been very active in industry and consortium activities, consulting, professional societies, government agency activities (including the DOE and NSF), and in service to the University of Maryland through advising, teaching, and his participation in department, college and university-level committees. He has also served on the editorial boards of a variety of publications, and on professional conference program committees. Please see Professor Rubloff's C.V. (PDF) for a complete list of his academic, industrial, government and community service activities.

Orcid: 0000-0002-1901-3982, Google Scholar

• Multifunctional nanostructures for energy storage and capture
• Atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, mechanisms, and technology
• Nanoscale devices for quantum computing

For detailed information about these projects, please visit Professor Rubloff's website.

Nanostructures and Energy Applications

• Nanostructures for Energy Devices
• Characterization of multilayer structures in nanopores
• AAO-ALD nanodevices and energy systems

Electronic Materials and Processes

• Atomic layer deposition (ALD)
• ALD-based Josephson junctions for quantum computing
• Programmable and combinatorial chemical vapor deposition
• Semiconductor materials, processing, and characterization

Nanomanufacturing

• Sensing and advanced process control for widegap semiconductor growth
• Real-time chemical process sensing for metrology and advanced process control
• Simulation and optimization in dynamic process systems

Professor Rubloff currently teaches or has taught the following courses:

• ENMA 465: Microprocessing of Materials (also offered as ENMA 489B)
• ENMA 490: Materials Design: Capstone Design Course
• ENMA 659S: Systems Design for Microelectronics Manufacturing Processes (also offered as "Materials and Processes for Microelectronics")

Please visit Professor Rubloff's web site to learn more about his industry short courses and courses he has taught for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Professor Rubloff has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers. For a complete list of publications, please visit his web site

• “Integration of Diverse Biological Materials in Micro/Nano Devices”, Reza Ghodssi, Peter Dykstra, Mariana Meyer, Stephan Koev, Konstantinos Gerasopoulos, Xiaolong Luo, Gary Rubloff, William Bentley, Gregory Payne, James Culver, Advanced Materials and Technologies for Micro/Nano-Devices, Sensors and Actuators, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. ISBN 978-90-481-3805-0. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2010, p. 275; DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-3807-4_22
• “Structural, electrical, and optical properties of atomic layer deposition Al-doped ZnO films”, Parag Banerjee, Won-Jae Lee, Ki Ryeol Bae, Sang Bok Lee, and Gary W. Rubloff, J.Appl. Phys. 108 (4), 043504 (17 Aug 2010), DOI: 10.1063/1.3466987. 
• “Chitosan: An Integrative Biomaterial for Lab-on-a-chip Devices”, S. T. Koev, P. H. Dykstra, X. Luo, G.W. Rubloff, W.E. Bentley, G.F. Payne, and R. Ghodssi, Lab on a Chip 10, 3026-3042 (2010), DOI: 10.1039/C0LC00047G.
• “Biofabrication to build the biology-device interface”, Yi Liu, Eunkyoung Kim, Reza Ghodssi, Gary W. Rubloff, James N. Culver, William E. Bentley, and Gregory F. Payne, Biofabrication 2, 1-21, 022002, DOI: 10.1088/1758-5082/2/2/022002.
• “Profile evolution for conformal atomic layer deposition over nanotopography”, Erin R. Cleveland, Parag Banerjee, Israel Perez, Sang Bok Lee, and Gary W. Rubloff, ACS Nano (14 Jul 2010), DOI: 10.1021/nn1009984
• “In situ quantitative visualization and characterization of chitosan electrodeposition with paired sidewall electrodes”, Yi Cheng, Xiaolong Luo, Jordan Betz, Susan Buckhout-White, Omar Bekdash, Gregory F. Payne, William E. Bentley, and Gary W. Rubloff, Soft Matter 6, 3177-3183 (2010), DOI:10.1039/C0SM00124D.
• “Chitosan to electroaddress biological components in lab-on-a-chip devices”, Y. Liu, X.-W. Shi, E. Kim, L. M. Robinson, C. K. Nye, R. Ghodssi, G. W. Rubloff, W. E. Bentley, and G. F. Payne, Carbohydrate Polymers (2010); DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2010.03.038.
• “In-Film Bioprocessing and Immunoanalysis with Electroaddressable Stimuli-Responsive Polysaccharides”, Xiaohua Yang, Eunkyoung Kim, Yi Liu, Xiao-Wen Shi, Gary W. Rubloff, Reza Ghodssi, William E. Bentley, Zeev Pancer, and Gregory F. Payne, Adv. Functional Mat. 20, 1645-1652 (2010), DOI: 10.1002/adfm.200902092
• “Biological nanofactories facilitate spatially-selective capture and manipulation of quorum sensing bacteria in a bioMEMS device”, Rohan Fernandes, Xiaolong Luo, Chen-Yu Tsao, Reza Ghodssi, Gary W. Rubloff, and William E. Bentley, Lab on Chip 10, 1128-1134 (2010), DOI: 10.1039/b926846d
• “ALD-based Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) Nanocapacitors for Energy Storage", Parag Banerjee, Israel Perez, Laurent Henn-Lecordier, Sang Bok Lee,and Gary Rubloff, ECS Transactions 25 (4), 345-353 (2009).