As 2024 comes to an end, NITL achieved many milestones this semester. Jamil successfully defended his MS thesis (Congrats!), and Francis presented for the first time on Phase Change Memory devices at Fall MRS in Boston, MA. NITL also welcomed Abigail who successfully completed her first ever research internship as a CAPS apprentice! The lab was able to celebrate these achievements at the end of the year social.
November was busy with research related to III-Nitrides! Dr. Pavlidis attended the Annual ME Commons meeting in recognition of his recent award for AlGaN power electronics! Subsequently, he traveled to Honolulu to present his latest findings on Gate Resistance Thermometry of AlGaN power devices. This time he was able to salute his turtle friends at Turtle Bay on the North Shore!
Dr. Pavlidis served as track co-chair for both the Power/RF Electronics and Photonics track and the Student Interactive Presentations at InterPACK 2024 in San Jose, CA. He also presented NITL’s latest research on High-Al Content AlGaN power devices led by M.S. Jamil (a collaboration with Sandia National Labs). His trip concluded with a visit to long term thermoreflectance imaging partner Microsanj and catching the sunset at Sierra Vista open space.
The Fall semester started off with a joint lab picnic with Dr. Kim’s lab! NITL welcomed new PhD pre-candidate Alejandro to the lab as well as three new undergraduate students (Liam, Emerson, and Abigail). Dr. Pavlidis attended the annual Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub meeting in the Gilette Stadium. NITL was a part of a team that was awarded 4.5 million for advancing DoD High Power Systems! [Link]
The NITL lab had a productive research summer both in Storrs and Washington DC! Dr. Pavlidis presented Bivek’s Masters work on thermal modelling of Perovskite semiconductors. He also successfully completed his ONR Summer Faculty Fellowship at the Naval Research lab where he developed gate resistance thermometry for high power electronics.
NITL was active at the IEEE ITherm in Denver, CO! Dr. Pavlidis served as a Tech-Talk Co-Chair and organized the conference’s first ever session on Quantum Computing and Thermal Packaging. Furthermore, Francis Vasquez’s first conference paper was also presented on optimizing microheaters for Phase Change Memory applications. Since there was no more snow in CT in late May, a quick trip to the Rocky Mountains provided panoramic views of the Rockies.
NITL finished the 23/24 Academic Year strong! Bivek successfully defended his Master’s Thesis titled “Thermal Analysis of SrSnO3 Perovskite Based Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices”. Dominic was awarded the 2024 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG)! Additionally, Dr. Pavlidis was awarded to 2024 ONR Summer Faculty Research Program to conduct research with the Naval Research Laboratory on Thermal Management Solutions for Ultra Wide Bandgap Semiconductors!
Dr. Pavlidis had the opportunity to present his work regarding the impact of buffer layers on the thermal performance AlGaN/GaN superlattice transistors. This is a result of an ongoing collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and an industrial partner.
In between teaching his new Nanoscale Heat Transfer class, Dr. Pavlidis had a busy week at the International Technical Conference and Exhibition on Packaging and Integration of Electronic and Photonic Microsystems (InterPACK) in San Diego, CA.
He successfully chaired the Interactive Presentation Track (over 30 students) and served as a panelist in the K16 Mentorship workshop (workshop designed to help students and junior scientists navigate career decisions). He also presented Bivek’s and Jamil’s scientific progress with an invited talked titled “Thermal Evaluation of Emerging Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for Power Electronics”.
