The effect of sexist humor on women's sense of possible-selves

Social identity theory encourages the importance of maintaining a positive self-image, and positive view of one’s own group (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). A person’s sense of possible-selves (the imaginations of who they are and who they could be in any given interaction) can become damaged when interacting with an individual who encourages threatening stereotypes (Brown, 1998). The present study aims to extend the understandings of how one’s image can be threatened, via “social identity-threat,” using sexist humor. In this study, participants’ ideations of their “possible-selves” will be measured by how they respond to self-survey questionnaires. Participants will imagine interactions with a graduate Teaching Assistant who engages in humor by telling jokes. The humor will be sexist or neutral in manner. The imagined interaction will contain either a confederate (TA) who offers the jokes, or a different confederate whose behaviors are ambiguous and does not participate in the jokes. I hypothesize that by degrading and diminishing women, sexist humor will derogate and threaten women’s social identities, and break their sense of self-worth, in a way that isn’t limited to contextual factors

Risk Premia in General Equilibrium

This paper shows that non-linearities imposed by a neoclassical production function alone can generate time-varying and asymmetric risk premia over the business cycle. These (empirical) key features become relevant, and asset market implications improve substantially when we allow for non-normalities in the form of rare disasters. We employ analytical solutions of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, including a novel solution with endogenous labor supply, to obtain closed-form expressions for the risk premium in production economies. In contrast to endowment economies, the curvature of the policy functions affects the risk premium through controlling the individual's effective risk aversion

Atomic Layer Deposition for Continued Scaling of Interconnects

With the need for more compute performance, smaller semiconductor device dimensions and denser interconnections have required the use of ultra-thin layers conformally deposited in three-dimensional structures such as the gate-all-around MOSFET and in high-aspect-ratio interconnect vias. Atomic layer deposition (ALD), with the ability to precisely control thickness as well as selectively deposit layers on different materials, is used in current process nodes for gate oxides and barrier layers, but new channel materials such as silicon-germanium (SiGe) and new interconnect metals such as cobalt (Co) and ruthenium (Ru) require new surface preparation techniques and ALD processes.Chapter 2 of this dissertation describes the passivation of defects in gate oxides deposited by ALD in SiGe-channel devices. SiGe’s high carrier mobility shows promise for future devices, but the presence of unstable germanium oxides (GeOx) in the interface between oxide and channel results in high defect densities, limiting device performance. By nitridating the surface prior to gate oxide ALD using an RF plasma, a reduction in defect densities is demonstrated. TEM and XPS studies confirmed the formation of a GeNx interfacial layer suppressing GeOx formation during ALD, improving gate oxide nucleation and decreasing defect densities. With shrinking device dimensions, interconnect via widths correspondingly shrink. While copper has long been used for due to its low bulk resistivity, ultra-narrow (<10 nm) via widths show high resistance with Cu. Co has been proposed as an alternative as it maintains its resistivity to smaller widths, with several selective Co ALD processes developed. However, surface defects can result in unwanted deposition, and in Chapter 3, the passivation of surface defects to enhance selectivity of Co ALD is studied, with XPS and SEM studies showing that a low-temperature reflow process can further enhance selectivity. Ru is also a promising metal for interconnects due to its potential for a barrier-less via fill, and in Chapter 4, the deposition of Ru with a resistance close to the bulk value by ALD is demonstrated. XRD and TEM studies confirm the deposition of Ru layers with low O and C content and grain sizes similar to the film thickness, minimizing grain boundary scattering

Atomic Layer Deposition for Continued Scaling of Interconnects

With the need for more compute performance, smaller semiconductor device dimensions and denser interconnections have required the use of ultra-thin layers conformally deposited in three-dimensional structures such as the gate-all-around MOSFET and in high-aspect-ratio interconnect vias. Atomic layer deposition (ALD), with the ability to precisely control thickness as well as selectively deposit layers on different materials, is used in current process nodes for gate oxides and barrier layers, but new channel materials such as silicon-germanium (SiGe) and new interconnect metals such as cobalt (Co) and ruthenium (Ru) require new surface preparation techniques and ALD processes.Chapter 2 of this dissertation describes the passivation of defects in gate oxides deposited by ALD in SiGe-channel devices. SiGe’s high carrier mobility shows promise for future devices, but the presence of unstable germanium oxides (GeOx) in the interface between oxide and channel results in high defect densities, limiting device performance. By nitridating the surface prior to gate oxide ALD using an RF plasma, a reduction in defect densities is demonstrated. TEM and XPS studies confirmed the formation of a GeNx interfacial layer suppressing GeOx formation during ALD, improving gate oxide nucleation and decreasing defect densities. With shrinking device dimensions, interconnect via widths correspondingly shrink. While copper has long been used for due to its low bulk resistivity, ultra-narrow (<10 nm) via widths show high resistance with Cu. Co has been proposed as an alternative as it maintains its resistivity to smaller widths, with several selective Co ALD processes developed. However, surface defects can result in unwanted deposition, and in Chapter 3, the passivation of surface defects to enhance selectivity of Co ALD is studied, with XPS and SEM studies showing that a low-temperature reflow process can further enhance selectivity. Ru is also a promising metal for interconnects due to its potential for a barrier-less via fill, and in Chapter 4, the deposition of Ru with a resistance close to the bulk value by ALD is demonstrated. XRD and TEM studies confirm the deposition of Ru layers with low O and C content and grain sizes similar to the film thickness, minimizing grain boundary scattering