Summer Research at Cornell

This past summer Dr. Brandon Hoffman began a collaboration with Dr. Shefford Baker at Cornell University that included four Houghton College students. The students studied the properties of thin silver films deposited on SiO_x.

The Project

In today's world of nanotechnology, the properties of extremely small materials have become extremely important. It turns out that, as the size (or thickness) of a material becomes small, the properties change dramatically. A thin (~10-1000nm) film deposited onto a larger substrate, for example, supports several times the stress of the "normal" size material! For this reason, a whole field in science is dedicated to the study of thin films.

    Houghton College participated specifically in the study of silver films deposited on SiO_x. The films were deposited and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD), and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Each student was placed in charge of one area of the project and performed both the background research and experimental work of that particular area. This gave the students a sense of ownership and expertise in the project.

Research Pictures

• The Deposition Chamber

• X-ray Diffraction

• Scanning Electron Microscopy and     Electron Backscattered Diffraction

• Transmission Electron Microscopy