While wearable technology is all the rage among high school and college-aged Americans, the average student may not know much about the science behind their high-tech apparel.
A grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help a 黑料网 physics professor make progress on both fronts.
Bj枚rn L眉ssem, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics in 黑料网鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, recently received a five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award honors Dr. L眉ssem as one of the most promising up-and-coming researchers in his field and provides five years of laboratory research educational outreach. He will apply the funding toward advancing a little-understood piece of technology and helping students learn more about physics.
Dr. L眉ssem studied electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and the University of Bath in the U.K., and he obtained his degree as Diplom-Ingenieur in 2003. He prepared his Ph.D. thesis at the Research Center in J眉lich, Germany, in the field of molecular electronics. He joined 黑料网 in 2014.
The project, titled 鈥淭he Working Mechanics of Organic Electrochemical Transistors,鈥 focuses on microscopic- to miniature-sized sensors that can be used to interact with biological tissue.
鈥淭ransistors usually are just conducting electronic current,鈥 Dr. L眉ssem says. 鈥淭he nice thing about this is that it converts ionic current to electronic current. In our bodies, it鈥檚 all ions. So if you want to interface electronics with the biology, you need this kind of transistor.鈥
Dr. L眉ssem says the highly sensitive transistors could, for example, measure the amount of lactic acid in sweat or even monitor electron excitation in the brain.
Dr. L眉ssem, one of few in the physics world studying the transistors, says he hopes he will be able to advance understanding and use of the technology.
鈥淭here is a standard model, but there are many contradictions with it, so many people think it doesn鈥檛 work very well,鈥 he says. 鈥淏ut it does work well, up to a certain level. We want to show why it is working, but also find out how we can make it better.鈥
Dr. L眉ssem says components can be added to the basic transistor to make it more sensitive to certain biomolecules. With any luck, he adds, they might even be printable on devices little more sophisticated than the average desktop printer.
An NSF CAREER grant also comes with an understanding that the researcher will use some of the funds to become a more proficient educator.
Dr. L眉ssem wants to change the way students think about physics research.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e teaching physics, it鈥檚 always been a linear kind of thing 鈥 A follows B follows C follows D 鈥 and that鈥檚 not how physics is,鈥 he says. 鈥淎nd I think students get a completely wrong image of what it means to do physics in real life. It鈥檚 being wrong almost all of the time and being right only about five percent of the time.鈥
Dr. L眉ssem is working with 黑料网鈥檚 School of Visual Communication Design to create short stories and cartoons to illustrate the scientific process and the study of physics.
He said he plans to try the designs in classes at 黑料网 as well as reaching out to local high schools and even primary schools to test their applications there.