The Laboratory for the Assembly and Spectroscopy of Emergence (LASE) is the lab of Dr. Kenneth Burch in the Physics Department at Boston College
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I began research in Dr. Burch's lab at Boston College as an undergraduate in 2016 after my freshman year. I remained an undergraduate research fellow until the summer after my graduation in 2019.
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While in Dr. Burch's lab, I had the privilege and responsibility of working independently on a variety of projects. Throughout the course of my research, I developed skills in the areas of nanolithographic fabrication, PCB design, UHV system design, 3D modeling, MATLAB, and LabVIEW. I also developed strong presentation skills and an ability to communicate technical information to both general and technical audiences.
Most importantly, due to the diverse nature of the projects I was a part of and the lab culture of independent, supervised work, I gained an ability to learn on my own to produce impactful results.
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Additional information about the lab and my projects can be found below.
Lab Description
As indicated by its name, LASE is concerned with the study of emergent states of matter in unconventional materials and potential applications of these states
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LASE's study of emergent states of matter occurs both through the study of the magnetoelectric and optical properties of materials and 2D material heterostructures.
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LASE also has efforts towards developing biosensing technology for rapid bacterial screening.
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The lab takes advantage of a range of in-house equipment, including a 9T magnet for differential conductance measurements and a cryostation for optical measurements. Fabrication takes place in an inert argon glovebox that is fully equipped for nanolithographic fabrication and AFM / Raman characterization.
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With the addition of the vacuum suitcase, the lab will also be able to incorporate MBE into the fabrication process and STM into the measurement process.
Projects
During my research I worked on a multitude of different projects. Select projects have been listed below in order of magnitude with additional information in their accompanying pages
Presentations
I presented my research on several occasions in the form of
poster sessions and lectures
Poster Sessions
REU Presentation
Hover to pause
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After my sophomore year I took part in the inaugural National Science Foundation REU summer program at Boston College, which ended with a presentation of the research I had done that summer. The subject is on magnetotransport measurements of superconductor/topological insulator interfaces. The target audience is scientific researchers, and a recording of the ~15 minute lecture is below.
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Publications
To view a list of my publications, please follow this link