Interns at the forefront of new technology
MIT Materials Research Laboratory (MRL) interns covered a wide gamut of challenges this summer, working with materials as soft as silk to as hard as iron and at temperatures from as low as that of liquid helium (-452.47 degrees Fahrenheit) to as high as that of melted copper (1,984 F). Summer Scholars and other interns participated on the MIT campus through the MRL’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, with support from the National Science Foundation, the AIM Photonics Academy, the MRL Collegium, and the Guided Academic Industry Network (GAIN) program. Mid-infrared detectors Simon Egner, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, made samples of lead tin telluride to detect mid-infrared light at wavelengths from 4 to 7 microns for integrated photonic applications. Egner measured several materials properties of the samples, including the concentration and mobility of electrons. “One thing we have come up with recently is adding lead oxide to try to decrease the amount of...