Summer Research Experience for Teachers
In the summer of 2004, the following teachers joined the MRSEC team:
Steven "Steve" Wignall, Seward High School
worked with Hai Nguyen and Diandra Leslie-Pelecky in Physics
"This has been a valuable learning experience for me and I plan on passing this new knowledge and the experiences I've gained this summer on to my students."
Mike Liebl, Mt. St. Michael High School
worked with Stephen Ducharme in Physics.
"Pyroelectric Scanning Microscopy (PSM) has been developed to enable mapping of surface polarization in ferroelectric thin films. The Chynoweth method for dynamically measuring pyroelectric current is employed in conjunction with a micropositioning system to construct two-dimensional images of the film polarization."
Pamela "Pam" Rasmussen, Raymond Central High School
worked with X. Rui and J. Shield
Studying the Influence of Differing Substrate and Film Thermal Expansion Coefficients on the Texture of FePt Thin Films
"As-deposited FePt thin films form in the disordered fcc structure. As a result, the films require heat treatment to form the magnetic L10 phase. Since this transformation involves a distortion of the unit cell, generating stresses in the thin film, externally applied stresses during the transformation could influence the transformation variant, developing texture in the FePt film. In this project, we are using differences in the thermal expansion coefficients between the substrate and FePt film to generate internal stresses during heat treatment."
Bernard "Ben" Hammerschmidt, Conestoga High School
worked with John Belot in Chemistry
The Design and Syntheses of New Multifunctional Diketones For The Self-Assembly of Extended Inorganic-Organic Frameworks
"Solid-state architectures self-assembled from metal-based coordination networks have attracted considerable interest as functional materials. These properties are often attributed to appropriately designed organic ligands for metal ion coordination, and fabrication of such multidentate organic spacers to serve as molecular bridges between metal centers. Our research has focused on isolating metal complexes using symmetrical b-cyano-diketones. b-cyanodiketones"