University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ferroelectric Polymer Langmuir-Blodgett Films-- Shireen Adenwalla, Mengjun Bai, Candice Bacon, Camelia Borca, Jaewu Choi, Alexander Bune, Peter Dowben, Stephen Ducharme, Vladimir Fridkin, Jihee Kim, Kristin Kraemer, Jianglu Li, Jianglai Liu, Christina Othon, Serguei Palto, Shawn Pebley, Brad Peterson, Matt Poulsen, Tim Reece, James M. Takacs, Alexander Sorokin, Gennady Vizdrik, Chuanxing Zhu.
Organic Photorefractive Materials-- Jaeil Bai, Stephen Ducharme, Alexi Leonov, Lu Liu, James M. Takacs
Space Ellipsometer-- Stephen Ducharme, Hasanein Machlab, J. A. Woollam Company
Shawn Pebley (prize-winning smile, left front), UNL BS 1998 is now a Lieutenant in the US Air Force.
Jaewu Choi (has NU spirit, 2nd from left front),Physics PhD 1998 with Prof. Dowben studying the electronic structure of ferroelectric polymers using photoemission and inverse photoemission spectroscopies. Now a post-doc based at the CAMD synchrotron in Baton Rouge, LA.
Jaeil Bai (contented fellow, 3rd from left, front), graduate student who studied Photorefractive Dendrimers.
Arosha Goonesekera (nice mustache, left right) was born in 1964 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. he received a B.S. in physics in 1991 from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. As an undergraduate, he conducted research on photovoltaic solar cells with sea water as an electrolyte and Hydrogen as a useful byproduct. He completed his PhD in Physics at UNL in August 1998 for studies of "Charge Transport in Photorefractive Polymers." Staff Scientist at Nanometrics.
Peter Dowben (not-fake beard, left rear), Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, heads the surface spectroscopy effort.
Stephen Ducharme (silly grin, 2nd from left, rear), a native of Massachusetts, earned a B.S. in physics at the University of Lowell and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Southern California and did time at the University of Utah and the IBM Almaden Research Center before joining the faculty at UNL in 1991. Steve is Associate Professor of physics and Benevolent Dictator, emphasizing studies of the physics of a variety of nonlinear optical and photoactive materials, including photorefractive polymers and crystals and ferroelectric polymers and crystals. Steve loves to teach his special laboratory course, Physics of Lasers and Modern Optics, and to play with light in public and in private.
Vladimir Fridkin (wise gentleman, center), a frequent visitor and co-director of our study of Langmuir-Blodgett Ferroelectric Polymers, is a distinguished scientist and head of the Electronic Materials Laboratory in the Institute of Crystallography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Vladimir studied at the Moscow State University where he now holds a joint appointment in the Department of Physics has contributed to many fields, including Xerography, ferroelectricity, photorefractive materials, and phase transitions. He was recently honored with a special issue of the premier scientific journal Ferroelectrics. He has authored or co-authored eight books and over 200 journal articles, received numerous awards, and mentored many outstanding scientists.
Serguei Palto (nice coiffure, 2nd from right, rear), PhD and Doctorate of Physics at the Institute of Crystallography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. He is making ferroelectric polymer films by Langmuir-Blodgett Deposition, STM, dielectric and pyroelectric measurements, among other things!
Alexander Bune (may have been bored, right rear) was born in Moscow, Russia in 1955. He Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Machinery in 1977 (M.S. in Electronics). In 1987 he joined Professor V. Fridkin's group in the Institute of Crystallography, Russian Academy of Sciences, earning a Ph.D. in 1992. From 1995-99 he was a Research Associate at the University of Nebraska, studying two-dimensional ferroelectric polymers. His main science interest is the Physics of ferroelectric polymers and crystals. His hobby before 1995 was mountain skiing and is now presently watching the stock market.
James M. Takacs (esteemed colleague, not shown), Professor of Organic Chemistry at UNL is co-PI of the AFOSR-funded Photorefractive polymers for Integrated Optics project. Jim received a B.S. in chemistry at Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in organic Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. Jim has been a member of the Chemistry faculty at the university of Utah. His areas of interest include new synthetic methodologies for synthesis and catalysis, in particular for development of nonlinear optical and photorefractive materials.
Matt Poulsen (not shown) an undergraduate physics student at UNL, has been using x-ray diffraction to measure the structure Ferroelectric Polymer films, expecially the structure changes at the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition.
Candice Bacon (not shown), an undergraduate physics student from Bethel College, measured the switching dynamics of ferroelectric two-dimensional Ferroelectric Polymer films during the Summer 1998 Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Nanostructured Materials program. She made this nice Movie of the polarization switching profile.
Josh White (not shown), an undergraduate physics student from Kenyon College, measured switching dynamics of the Ferroelectric Polymer films during the Summer 1999 Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Nanostructured Materials.
Mengjun Bai (not shown), PhD student working with Prof. Ducharme on the study of ferroelectric polymers.
Julia Roberts (not shown), never heard of us.
Martin Liphardt (nice shirt, 2nd from right) was born in 1967 in Goettingen, Germany. His studies in Physics began at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany where he was enrolled for 3 years before coming to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where, in 1992 he received a M.S. in Physics. He received his Ph.D. for a thesis entitled "Photorefractive Polymeric Materials," from UNL in August 1997. He is now working with the J. A. Woollam Company of Lincoln, NE. Martin's main areas of interest are materials science, non-linear optics and destruction-free testing.
Chuanxing Zhu (at ease, on right) was born in 1958 in Jiangjin, China. He received a B.S. degree from Shandong University in 1982. Then he worked in the Peripheral Department of East China Institute of Computer Technology as an assistant engineer. After receiving his M.S. degree in physics from Shanghai University of Science and Technology in 1988, he joined the scientific staff of Shanghai Institute of Optics and Academy of Science. In 1993 he came to the University of Nebraska as a visiting scholar and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate investigating the thermal, electrical, and optical properties of ferroelectric crystals and polymers. Now a staff scientist at HMT Technology in Fremont, CA
Bethel College Chemistry student Kim Loewen, spent the summer of 1995 working on ferroelectric/polymer composites.
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