Alvaro Garcia and Nathan Malcolm, engineering doctoral students at The University of Texas at Austin received 2008 Applied Materials fellowships. The $35,000 annual graduate fellowship is given to doctoral students who engage in research closely aligned with Applied Materials’ business needs.
Through his research, Garcia, an electrical engineering student, aims to measure low temperature plasma. If successful, he will help to understand how to confine plasma in a special device called a Tokamak, where a critical region of cold plasma separates very hot plasma from the walls. This is particularly important because it will help create fusion energy, a safe and clean source of nuclear energy. Low temperature plasmas are also used for fabrication of semiconductors, and these plasmas need more accurate measurement. Garcia works under supervising professor Gary Hallock, professor of electrical engineering.
Malcolm, a mechanical engineering student, focuses on nanoscale radiation heat transfer modeling, and he is using a 3D Finite Difference Time Domain model to simulate radiation heat transfer between nanosphere gold markers and a ZnO nanowire embedded in a silver substrate. This can be used in the integrated circuit industry for a nanoscale thermal probe and in the medical community for detecting individual cancer cells marked with gold nanoparticles. Malcolm’s supervising professor is Jack Howell, professor of mechanical engineering.
