Aims

The aim of the module is to make students ready to carry out independent research in a laboratory, i.e. equip students with a framework for research project planning, recording, experimental design, and data management and interpretation to be applied as they progress to individual, specific research projects. The module has been designed to acquaint students with some key principles underlying good practice in physics research in laboratory settings.

Outline Of Syllabus

- Plan a sample fabrication run based on the chosen research project.
- Training on relevant fabrication techniques and sample fabrication based on chosen research project.
- Training on correct instrument use and data analysis of the following techniques:
1.       XRD analysis
2.       Raman spectroscopy
3.       AFM
4.       Electrical characterisation

- Full characterisation on prepared samples and analysis of results.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Workshops provide the means of delivering to students the core information required to acquire the intended knowledge outcomes. Under the direct supervision of experienced laboratory users, such as current PhD students and/or technicians, the students will learn how to plan, book and execute experiments to a standard high enough to enable their publication in scientific journals.

Students will fabricate a sample relevant to their research project and then characterise it using the techniques taught as part of the workshops, enabling a “learning by doing” approach where they learn the intricacies of modern characterisation techniques and learn to interpret the results based on their own samples. This will promote a deep understanding and appreciation of modern characterisation tools enabling the students to hit the ground running when they begin their own research project in semester two.

The project supervisor will promote critical thinking and reflection as they undertake active learning on the preparation of their scientific report, leading to a manuscript of a high enough quality to be published in a scientific journal. Self-study will allow the student to deepen their expertise with experimental tools.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The preparation of a scientific-style report will test the student’s understanding of experimental techniques, their limits and the relevance and analysis of the results with respect to the fabricated samples.
The scientific report will summarise and reproduce the results of the research article, be constructed in LaTex and include data generated and plotted in Matlab.