Monday, June 15, 2020
By:
We are now through our second week, and it was a somewhat slower paced week compared with the first week. After the rush of introductions, first meetings, and preliminary discussions for projects, this week has been mostly waiting for the next step in the plan of action. I was directed to some literature and now have a firmer grasp on the nature of my project. The project is related to atomic force microscopy (AFM) which measures the potential surface of nano-scaled devices using the vibration of a nano-meter scaled vibrating cantilever. Semiconductor devices are ubiquitous in our technological society and up to 50% of the manufacturing steps could be measurement and characterization. AFM measurement is a state-of-the-art technique for this process of metrology for these devices. AFM has also been used for imaging of molecular sized biological materials.
The first adversity of the virtual internship has surfaced, that being my lack of computational power needed for an appropriate simulation of interest to my mentor. Instead of a three-dimensional metrology simulation, I will most likely be restricted to two-dimensional simulation with my current computational resources. My mentor did mention to me that it may be possible to have me visit sometime in July to see some of the devices that I would have been working with, so that is something to look forward to.
Billy "Trey" Cole