Norzaini Zainal has been joined USM as a lecturer since 2010. At her early career, she spent almost two years working on cubic GaN material, which was an extended project from her PhD work at University of Nottingham, UK. Later, she initiated a new research theme in III-V nitrides semiconductors, focusing on controlling properties of nitrides thin films through base structuring in nanoscale and base orientation, together with manipulation of series of processing physically and thermally. Her team keeps expanding each year and currently she has 5 PhD and 1 MSc students. A funding from Malaysia government through National Epitaxy Program: GaN-on-GaN has allowed her team to extend the work into developing and designing exotic new light emitting diodes (LEDs) using epitaxial technology based metal organics chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). In particular, her team is focusing on increasing efficiency for LEDs operating in deep UV spectrum as well as in longer spectrum. Under the program, her team collaborates extensively with University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, Universiti Malaya and OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. Apart from that, she has initiated connection with few groups from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and in a very near future with University of Sheffield, United Kingdom and Research Center for Heteroepitaxy and its Applications (CRHEA).
