Nanofabrication Research Assistant | Ria

Ria interned as a nanofabrication research assistant at Intlvac, a thin film technology systems manufacturer in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada. Keep reading to learn more about her co-op journey, what her job is like, and what surprised her the most about the nanotechnology field!

How did you get to where you are today?

Before choosing to pursue nanotechnology engineering, I had very little understanding of what a career in the field would entail. In high school, I was only certain of my interest in chemistry, physics, and biology and the type of applications that combine these three domains.

Prior to my co-op at Intlvac, I worked as a machine learning research assistant with Professor Kaan Inal from the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering department at the University of Waterloo, and then as a network analyst at SunLife Financial. Although drastically different experiences, both co-ops were very influential in guiding me to where I am today! When it comes to co-op, my main goal is to try out as many different pathways as I can to figure out what I like and don’t like. Along the way, I’ve learned lots. Three important takeaways are:

1. Perseverance will get you through any steep learning curve. Before starting my first co-op, I had VERY limited programming experience, yet I was about to embark on a role that required me to optimize a machine learning model. The jump seemed daunting and nearly impossible, so what do you do in this scenario? First, I tried to change the way I reacted to a “failure,” viewing it as a learning experience rather than an obstruction in my ability to get the job done. I learned that by persevering through my (many) failures, the number of errors will lessen in time for the successes to ascend.
2. Ask questions! Keeping your curiosity quiet or holding back from filling gaps in your understanding has ZERO benefit. Sometimes, you have to ask a lot of questions to get on the right pathway of thought. In saying this, it is still necessary to use critical thinking to try to find the answer yourself; however, not every question can be answered in this way. Especially in a field like nanotechnology where new ideas are constantly emerging, asking the experts around you is the best way to learn!
3. Take initiative whenever you can. Although it may seem like your knowledge is limited in comparison to the people you work with, it’s helpful to remember that your ideas don’t have to be perfect to be spoken. More often than not, self-initiative to pursue an idea is appreciated, even if it never comes to full fruition. Showing what you know may lead to a chain reaction of conversations that eventually results in a fully formed idea. As a bonus, taking initiative is a quick way to test your knowledge and learn from the outcome.

What are the main responsibilities of your job? What projects have you taken on?

As a nanofabrication research assistant, most of my work focused on characterizing and analyzing thin films. This includes using instrumentation such as a microscope, profilometer, ellipsometer, AFM, and UV-Vis spectrophotometer. Thickness, surface topography, index of refraction, and absorbance measurements are the most common characterizing tools for thin films. Based on the combination of these measurements, the deposition process can be modified to yield the desired film.

Some of the projects I worked on include:

• Developing a measurement tool with a corresponding GUI application for the purpose of mapping the magnetic field of magnetron sputtering magnets
• Designing an experiment procedure to yield a conductive diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin film under client constraints
• Characterizing and analyzing the thermal deposition of indium to achieve the thickness, fill and material properties for a variety of solder bump designs (see the image below for what an ideal fill looks like)

What’s your favourite part of your job?

When I started my co-op at Intlvac, I had very minimal experience with thin film technology and was vaguely knowledgeable about the role of a nanofabrication engineer. Before starting university, I was completely unaware that thin film technology even existed as a domain of engineering. In saying this, the best part of my job was the magnitude of learning I was exposed to. A day would rarely go by without learning something new.

One of my favourite experiences was being involved in designing an experimental procedure to yield a conductive DLC thin film under specific constraints. Up until that point, in previous coursework and co-ops, I had never had to question how experimental procedures were created. Most often, I would be given a set of instructions to follow and then only apply critical thinking in analyzing the results.

For this project, I had to pull from all aspects of my knowledge and ask myself unfamiliar questions. My main role was determining the combination of gasses needed to be used with plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) to deposit graphene-like DLC, while also maintaining a specific hardness. After initial research, I enjoyed creating methodological tests to determine the effectiveness of tweaking different parameters in the experiment. Overall, I finished this project with a greater sense of the critical questions I should be asking myself when performing any experiment. I was also encouraged by other engineers supporting my hypotheses and giving me the opportunity to test them out.

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about the nanotechnology field?

At first glance, the nanotechnology field seems very foreign. Most likely, the six syllable name is the cause of the confusion. What is nano, and how is it related to technology? If I can’t see it, what exactly is it doing? Due to the immense confusion, it is often regarded as a very niche field of science and engineering. However, I have learned throughout my undergraduate degree and various co-op experiences that the reach of nanotechnology in the realm of applied science is vast.

Electronics, energy, materials, medicine, and robotics are all directly impacted from the fundamentals of nanotechnology. The diversity of applications has surprised me beyond belief. Who would have thought nanotechnology is used to transport medicine throughout the body or to improve renewable energy sources? Did you know there is a material created using nanotechnology that emulates shark skin? The physical properties of the material don’t allow bacteria to reside on it, essentially creating a self-cleaning antibacterial surface.

Ultimately, nanotechnology is everywhere! In hindsight it seems obvious, but at the beginning, I never thought this field could cover so much ground. As the name grows to be more familiar with the general public, hopefully the monumental impact of nanotechnology becomes less of a surprise.