2012 RET Participants
The MRSEC provides up-to five metro-Atlanta high school physics teachers a research experience every summer. The objective of the program is to familiarize participating physics teachers with the modern materials and physics concepts and their applications to engineering as well as their relevance to today’s technology. Each teacher works on an individual research project with a MRSEC faculty.
Participants get unique opportunities to:
- Have a 8 week research experience at the state-of-the-art MRSEC facilities
- Receive a $6,000 stipend
- Attend MRSEC seminars, lectures and journal club
- Participate in professional development activities
- Prepare a research-based lesson plan
The 2013 program will run from June 3 to July 26. The program will start with a half-day orientation and end with each participant giving an oral presentation on the last day of the program. Teachers will be admitted and hired through the STEP-UP program. Interested teachers can apply to the program on-line by completing the STEP-UP application form.
View lesson plans developed by past participants
View what past participants say about the program
The MRSEC research projects are challenging and many have outcomes that could directly be used in technological applications in the near future. The Center faculty developed techniques for using the material “graphene”, that is recognized in the physics Nobel Prize in 2010, in electronic devices. The abstracts of the past year teacher research projects are provided in the table below. Each teacher’s research presentation can be viewed by clicking on her/his project title.
| GT MRSEC RET 2012 PROJECTS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Participant Name & Affiliation | Project Title | Project Abstract | Faculty Mentor |
| Maria Jonshon Cabrices – Chamblee Charter High School | Graphene Nanoribbons on Silicon Carbide | Graphene nanoribbons are narrow, straight edged single layer graphite with particularly interesting properties. Graphene nanoribbons are predicted to have better properties including quantum defined band gaps and magnetic edge effects. They may behave as quantum wires at low temperatures. This improvement in properties from larger sheets of graphite makes them useful for nanoscale electronic devices. | Phil First |
| William Daly – Collins Hill High School | Lithiated Transition Metal Oxides | There is a long history of interest in intercalation of ions between layer crystals. A group of materials that exhibit this layering phenomenon are comprised of a transition metal bonded with two chalcogen atoms. Many such molecules form crystalline layers between which small ions may be intercalated. The small ions are typically alkali metals, but occasionally magnesium has been used. | Alan Doolittle |
| Molly Golladay – Marietta High School | Bandstructure of Graphene | Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (APRES) is commonly used to study the dispersion curve of graphene. Current tight-binding theoretical models of this curve do not accurately match experimental findings. An alternate model is proposed and compared to current experimental results using computational analysis methods. | Edward Conrad |
| Candice Henry– Carver: Health Sciences and Research | Iron Chloride Intercalated Chlorine | Graphene is considered a novel new material due to its great conductivity at room temperature, flexibility, strength, and transparency. However, it has not yet realized its potential because researchers are diligently working on how to control, modify, and manipulate its properties. Through the intercalation process of layering FeCl3 within layers of graphene, research has shown that the optical and electron mobility characteristics can be modified. The goal of this research is to take Raman, Ellipsometry, Spectroscopy, and Four-Point measurements on pre-intercalated graphene to determine the presence, thickness, absorption, and conductivity of samples. Then generate stage- 1 intercalated graphene using a two-stage vapor method. After taking post-intercalated data the resultant information would then be utilized to quantitatively illustrate optical and conductivity trends in FeCl3 intercalated graphene. However, due to challenges in the experimental design the theoretical expectations were not able to be experimentally determined. | Phil First |
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