Materials Research Society (MRS) is one of the biggest communities of materials researchers in the world with approximately 16,000 members from about 80 countries. It encourages communication and technical information exchange across the various fields of science affecting materials. MRS Spring Meeting is one of the two major international annual meetings sponsored by the society. The 2013 Spring Meeting welcomed around 5,000 attendees and hosted 56 technical symposia covering the extraordinary progress in materials science and technology such as energy, nanomaterials, electronics, photonics, biomaterials, and general materials science.
My research is on the development of NiO thin films grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD). In the conference, I belong to symposium XX which is about oxide thin films and heterostructures for advanced information and energy technologies. NiO has drawn a lot of interests from researcher around the world due to its possibilities to be used as transparent semiconductors. Its wide band gap also provides way for ultra violet device application. However, to achieve these long term goals, it is required to investigate optimum process of growth and characterization of the films.
I presented my research titled “Effect of O2/Ni Gas Ratio on the Epitaxial Growth of NiO Films by Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition” in the poster session. We currently focus on optimizing the growth from the O2/Ni gas ratio aspect. We found that the O2/Ni gas ratio affects surface morphology and crystal quality of NiO thin films significantly. We believe this is an important finding to further advancement in developing NiO.
Participating in the conference has enabled me to meet and communicate with many researchers from around the world. We had discussions on our research topics and exchanged ideas. I have been able to connect and expand my network with other researchers from around the world. I also received some valuable suggestions for our research.
Various range of activities such as science as art competition, public outreach and exhibitions made the MRS 2013 Spring Meeting an enjoyable conference.
In general, the MRS 2013 Spring Meeting has provided a great opportunity to share and discuss our research accomplishments.
