The S.M.A.R.T. Research Laboratory
As an undergraduate, I worked at the Semiconductor Materials Research and Radiological Technologies [S.M.A.R.T.] Laboratory at Kansas State University. My primary contributions were associated with the installation of the Class 1000 clean room facility and the refurbishment and repair of a wide variety of laboratory equipment, including chemical etching stations, processing furnaces, plasma etching stations, and thin film sputtering equipment. I also assisted with work on the development of bulk electro-plating techniques for nickel thin films, directional and micro-scale semiconductor neutron detectors, and MCNP simulations for a range of prototypical detector hardware.
Class 1000 Clean Room
The construction of the S.M.A.R.T. Lab clean room facility was executed as a partnership between a private installation company and the lab staff, including graduate and undergraduate research assistants.
The project began with the removal of equipment and material from a previous laboratory which utilized the intended clean room space. Next, a group of students provided support for assembly of the clean room walls and air handling equipment, as well as installation of electrical service for the various laboratory equipment. After this step, we installed a static grounding floor, moved the work stations and various lab equipment into the clean room, and to began the process of sealing the room for certification of the air handling equipment. After certification, as an independent project, I routed and installed a lab-wide cooling water system, re-built an electron-beam evaporation tool, and assisted with the development of a control system for a plasma etching station previously deployed in a former clean room space.
The clean room was just starting to be utilized for research projects when I graduated from Kansas State University in May of 2012, and is currently being used to fabricate semiconductor based neutron detectors on a commercial scale, as well as support research and development activities for a range of radiation detector development projects.
Radiation Detector Development
Over the years that I was an undergraduate research assistant at the S.M.A.R.T. Lab, I assisted with several projects focused on development of novel radiation detectors. These include high-efficiency, semiconductor based neutron detectors, directional detectors for imaging applications, metal-foam gas detectors, carbon-nanotube-based detectors, as well as a range of processes to support the fabrication and testing of these detectors. I also assisted with the development of a low-cost electroplating process for nickel thin films, as well as some limited assistance with crystal growth and material processing activities. Outside the lab, I developed MCNP simulation code to simulate the function of these detectors, and provided limited analysis to support development reports.