The technical structure of AVS is organized as a matrix. Members can participate in one or more Divisions or Technical Groups, each of which is focused around a major topical area. Members may also participate in Chapters and Student Chapters, which are regional organizations that focus on local area needs.


Hudson Mohawk - Meet a Member (Alain Diebold)


Alain Diebold

Vincent SmentkowskiAlain Diebold is Professor Emeritus and Empire Innovation Professor of Nanoscale Science at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. Alain remains a resident of the Capital Region where he and wife Annalisa reside. Alain and Annalisa have two grown children Laura and Gregory who were born in Austin, TX. The family enjoys traveling especially to Europe where they visit family and friends. Naturally, the whole family enjoys Texas style BBQ. Laura married Austin Clark this summer (2021) in a joyful and safe ceremony, and they live in Baltimore.  Greg received his master’s degree in Urban Planning from Hunter College in December 2020, and he now works for Cayuga County and lives in Syracuse.  Alain remains in contact with the friends he developed in graduate school and beyond.

Professor Diebold was a long time Interim Dean of the College of Nanoscale Science, and he was an advisor to the Interim President of SUNY Polytechnic Institute.  He is an AVS Fellow and a SPIE Fellow. He maintains an active research group in the area of the optical and electrical properties of nanoscale materials and their characterization in in-fab metrology. Significant publications include a Fall 2021 book from Springer Nature entitled the Optical and Electrical Properties of Nanoscale Materials (co-author) and the Handbook of Silicon Semiconductor Metrology (editor and chapter author). Through collaboration with the industrial partners at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering such TEL Technology Center America, students and post-doctoral fellows have advanced the characterization and metrology of advanced materials and structures through microscopy, optical, and both laboratory and synchrotron-based X-Ray methods. He authored or co-authored 18 book chapters, nearly 100 peer reviewed journal papers, more than 135 conference proceedings, and given more than 105 invited presentations both domestically and internationally. He remains active in the internal spectroscopic ellipsometry community which provides intellectual inspiration, and more importantly, is the community having many life-long friends.

For many years, he cochaired the Metrology Roadmap Technical Working Group for the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors which he started. This group wrote the semiconductor industry’s roadmap for Metrology and Characterization for more than fifteen years. The ITRS was championed by the Semiconductor Industry Associations from the U.S., Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Europe. During this time, he was the Metrology Editor for the semiconductor industry magazine Future Fab International.   He has written more than 30 magazine articles about characterization and metrology for Future Fab and other magazines.

He was a SEMATECH Senior Fellow and worked in advancing the characterization and metrology of semiconductors where he worked from 1989 to 2007. Prior to that, he was a Senior Chemist at Allied Signal in Morristown, NJ from 1981 to 1988. Dr. Diebold started and led the SEMATECH Analytical Lab Managers Working Group which coordinated research, development, and application of new materials characterization capability in aberration corrected microscopy and associated sample preparation, X-Ray Diffraction and Reflectivity, electron spectroscopy, scanned probe microscopy, and synchrotron-based methods. This group championed the introduction of whole wafer capable materials characterization systems for at-line or in-line use by the semiconductor industry using a location addressable precision wafer stage.   This breakthrough enabled the characterization of defects and sample areas by both in-line defect and particle detection systems and in-line dual column FIB (focused ion beam-SEM) and at-line/in-line methods such as XPS, SIMS, Auger, etc.  This group also championed the use of X-Ray Reflectivity as a means of measuring the thickness of thin metal films.  Other examples of collaborative research to advance measurement methods included AFM, SIMS, and Atom Probe. This group consisted of the Directors of Characterization Labs in the SEMATECH member companies, members for the national Institute of Science and Technology, the US National Laboratories, key university researchers across the US and internationally.

Professor Diebold has a long-time association with the AVS.  After Gary Rubloff and Mike Liehr started the AVS Manufacturing Science and Technology Group, he became chair and helped lead that group for many years. This group organized the MSTG technical sessions. He has been a member of other AVS Group organizing committees including the one on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry.   He also helped Dave Seiler of NIST start the Conference Series now known as the Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics back in 1998.  The next FCMN will be held in 2022. The FCMN is co-sponsored by the AVS which provides meeting organizational support.  His roughly 15-year term as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transaction on Semiconductor Manufacturing ends in December 2021.