The 物理天文学系 at 皇冠体育 has extraordinary access to research equipment and facilities, 我们鼓励学生进行研究. Below are recent projects that students completed via 皇冠体育's 暑期本科生研究项目.
Harvesting Energy from Human Motion Using Piezoelectric Materials
Natal Negusu ’22; Advisor: Gordon Stecklein
Piezoelectric materials generate electricity when subject to mechanical stress or strain due to the creation of a potential difference. 在这个研究项目中, we investigate the practicality of a wearable energy harvester that would make use of a piezoelectric material. The piezoelectric material used for the research was a PZT (lead zirconate titanate) bender. Our objective was to establish the parameters of the intrinsic material and use this information to develop a wearable piezoelectric generator. The wearable device would include an SD card data logger to provide feedback and record the electricity produced. Through various lab and field tests used to quantify the efficiency of the device, we were able to determine that the power output is improved by increasing the free end length of the bender. Power output is further maximized by adding proof masses to the end of the bender. This is due to the resulting decrease in the resonance frequency of the bender. 证明质量超过7克, we observe a decline in efficiency that we attribute to increased mechanical damping. 我们的可穿戴式发电机可产生多达2.5兆瓦的功率，容量系数为14%.
薄膜测量和沉积
Haidee Clauer ’22; Advisor: Gordon Stecklein
Applications of alumina thin films range from transistor encapsulation and biochemical research to coatings that improve the shelf-life of commercial goods. 虽然氧化铝可以通过几种技术来生长, atomic layer deposition allows for precise control of atom-level thickness. In this project we designed a simplified system for carrying out this growth technique at a tenth of the cost of a commercial version. To measure the thickness of oxide films similar to those grown by our proposed deposition system, 我们采用了两种光学技术, 反射率和椭偏性. We built optical models to calculate the thickness based on our measurements, ultimately verifying the consistency of 反射率和椭偏性 for films up to 3000 Angstroms thick. 通过椭圆光度法, we measured films as thin as 17 Angstroms with uncertainties as low as 3 Angstroms.
苔藓孢子扩散机制
Guido Dominguez ’22; Advisor: Dwight Whitaker
泥炭藓 moss disperses its spores using a vortex ring generated by a pressurized capsule that ruptures on a warm sunny day. 这种孢子扩散机制使 泥炭藓 to carry its spores beyond the turbulent boundary layer where it grows so that they can be carried indefinitely by wind currents, which would not be possible if the tiny spores were launched ballistically. Here we present a finite element analysis of the explosive spore discharge from 泥炭藓 使用ANSYS Fluent制作胶囊. By matching the trajectories of vortex rings in our models to high speed videos of capsule explosions we can determine the initial pressure of the capsule. Moreover by analyzing the flow of vorticity out of the capsule we can determine if the vortex rings produced by 泥炭藓 are optimal as is seen for the vortex rings produced by animals.
Fabrication and Characterization of Screen-printed Perovskite Solar Cells
Phuong Nguyen ’22; Advisor: David Tanenbaum
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are an alternative to mainstream silicon solar technologies due to cost-efficient materials, 竞争力转换, 易于制造. 我们用二氧化钛丝网印刷油墨来制造psc, 氧化锆, and Carbon and infiltrating them with a Perovskite precursor, 然后记录IV曲线和空间电流图.
Supported by 皇冠体育大学 grants from the Hirsch and Sontag families.
物理教育工作空间原型
Kenneth Ochieng ’22; Advisor: Thomas Moore
研究 on learning trends and styles in physics education is limited by the lack of efficient methods to strategically collect information about how students think when solving problems. The Physics Education Workspace would be a computer application that allows students to work on physics problems, 在这个过程中, collect and provide a transcript of a student’s thinking processes and problem-solving techniques. The transcript generated will provide information valuable to physics instructors, 物理教育研究者, 还有物理教科书的作者. 具体地说, the PEWP seeks to address the shortcomings of the recorded interview technique, which is the most common method that education researchers use to collect data about student thinking. 工作区, unlike the time-intensive analysis of a recorded interview, can provide large volumes of data from many subjects simultaneously and economically.
Our immediate goal for the workspace is to build it up into a usable application that will enable students to solve a very limited set of introductory physics problems (for now) and submit their solutions through the application. 工作区 will provide essential drawing tools for students, as well as tools for manipulating equations based on physics principles. 除了, it will also provide links to equations when using unknown quantities and will complete the math involved in solving equations with variables.