Jonathan Yu hasn’t found a way to make polymer-coated gold nano-wires that can be used in the electronic devices of the future—yet.
“I still need to optimize the parameters of the experiment,” the third-year chemistry student said yesterday as he was setting up his research display in the Commons area of the CAW Student Centre.
Yu, who grew up in Windsor and graduated from Vincent Massey Secondary School, was one of a number of students from Chemistry and Biochemistry showing their research posters Tuesday. Since last September, Yu has been researching methods of aligning tiny gold nanoparticles and then using a process called electro-spinning to coat them with polymers so they can be converted into tiny wires, capable of acting as conductors or transmitting data in our ever-shrinking electronic devices.
Despite the fact that Yu has not been able to incorporate a sufficient number of gold nanoparticles into the polymer fibres, the experiments– which he worked on full-time throughout the summer – can’t be considered a failure, according to Holger Eichhorn, Yu’s academic supervisor.
“It’s actually more progress than I expected,” Dr. Eichhorn said of Yu’s work, adding that experiencing trial and error as a method of arriving at conclusions is a crucial part of the learning curve for young researchers.
“The main objective of undergraduate research is to make students aware of the process of discovery, educate them about lab techniques, as well as the academic process of establishing research objectives and arriving at outcomes,” he said.
Yu, who hasn’t made any firm plans for the future but is considering the possibility of grad school, said he’s grateful for the chance to do research at the undergraduate level. Many of his friends who went to other universities haven’t had the same chances, he added.
“There are opportunities, but I think they’re a little rarer,” he said.
Eichhorn, who has five undergrads working in his lab, said the University of Windsor probably has a larger proportion of undergraduate researchers than most schools, and credits that to the number of NSERC scholarships awarded here as well as the outstanding scholars program. Affording them the opportunity is an investment in the student and grooms them for post graduate work, he said.
“They start at a higher level by the time they get to graduate school because they’ve had a lot of research experience,” he added.
Yu said he’ll continue working on the project this year with the hope of more positive outcomes.
“This is a very competitive area,” Eichhorn said. “I’m sure that worldwide, several billions of dollars are invested every year in to developing these kinds of nano-materials. I’m sure there are lots of people who are working on this particular type of structure who all want to be the first person to make it.”