Yonry Zhu | Design and Setup of a Pulsed Laser Deposition System

Yonry Zhu [Photo: Russ College of Engineering and Technology]

I worked in Dr. Arthur Smith’s lab during summer 2015 and designed a pulsed laser deposition system for fabricating semiconducting thin films. The system is meant to be a test bed for components that will ultimately be integrated into an existing molecular beam epitaxy system, also for fabricating thin films.

The previous people working on this project all graduated two or more years ago, so while I had existing parts that they had purchased, I had no idea how they were supposed to be used. (Finding the parts was actually problematic.) I eventually was able to get in touch with the students to help me bring the project up to speed.

Much of my summer was spent learning how ultra-high vacuum systems are assembled and designed. I also dramatically improved my CAD abilities.

Yonry Zhu – 2015 Intern with Dr. Arthur Smith –  junior at Ohio University – Honors Tutorial College – engineering physics major