ASU undergraduate Physics major Kayla Zimmerman has been awarded a 2014 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. She will be spending 11 weeks at the Laboratory working with scientists on "Electrical Measurements of Molecular Layers by Eutectic Gallium-Indium." She will be incorporating self-assembled molecules into capacitor structures as molecular electronic test beds. The capacitor structures consist of tiny holes in a silicone-dioxide layer that is in contact with gold and silicone, and the molecules self-assemble to the gold surface. She will be responsible for making electrical measurements to monitor the effects of varying molecular length and head groups, and perform physical measurements such as infrared spectroscopy and contact angle goniometry to characterize the molecular layer. She will aid in the development of Eutectic Gallium-Indium-based electrical measurement metrology.
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