It’s been a really busy quarter, beginning to get into more rigorous engineering classes along with my first upper division (Materials 101), but I’m VERY happy to say that I’m in the lab a lot more often this quarter than last, as a few new projects have arisen.
One project involves fixing up and redesigning the low-temperature Hall measurement system (a device we use to get information about charge carrier concentration and mobility in our samples). We are working on redesigning one part of the machine that will allow quicker responses to temperature changes as well as analyzing data related to a problem with not being able to match the displayed temperature with the actual temperature of the sample.
The second project is called the “spin-on glass project”, and involves a new way of processing samples for high-temperature Seebeck measurements (measuring the temperature-induced voltage characteristics of a thermoelectric sample). At high temperatures, the substrate on which the sample is grown begins to conduct and masks out any information about the actual sample that we need. Previous methods of removing the sample from the substrate have caused problems with inconsistency and fracturing the extremely fragile film, and a proposed idea is to essentially coat the sample’s surface with spin-on glass, bond the whole thing to a sapphire substrate (much less conductive), etch away the original substrate, and polish the sample to flatness. We will measure the flatness of the sample before and after this process using atomic force microscopy, a technique I’m REALLY excited to learn about.
Another cool development this quarter has been the addition of two new CEEM interns to the Palmstrom group. They are both seniors, Aamir (electrical engineering) and JP (physics) and it has been really fun working with and getting to know them so far. I am excited to see how much progress we will make together by the end of the school year!