My Research- Matt Chang (senior, Electrical Engineering)

Here’s my favorite research story. In 2004, Andrew Geim and Kostya Novoselov from the University of Manchester were playing with tape. Nothing special about this tape, just the usual stuff you use to make things stick to other things. They stuck the tape to a large piece of graphite and pulled back so that layers of graphite began to come off. And they did it again. And again. And again - until the piece of graphite got so thin that it was literally one atom thick. They weren’t trying to get an atom thick piece of graphite but that’s what they found, and it was a huge surprise because an atom thick layer of graphite was supposed to be impossible. Long story made short, 6 years later (several weeks ago), Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics… for playing with tape and, essentially, pencil lead.

Don’t get me wrong, their accomplishments are deserving of a Nobel Prize. The atom thick layer of graphite, called graphene, has unbelievable properties. It is the strongest material we know of today, and has electrical properties that make your computer look like play-doh. Research does produce ground-breaking results. It is our front line as we push the boundaries of science and engineering. But the point of the graphene story is that research probably isn’t what you imagine it to be.

Let me explain. Flashback 2.5 years, and you’ll find a young enthusiastic version of myself (not that I’m not today, I’m just unbelievably modest now). I had just arrived in Gaithersburg, Maryland for my first research experience at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which I had gotten by applying through the National Science Foundation (NSF). NIST is a government lab - they even gave us nifty pink badges that said “you have government clearance, but not really”. I was there to work on a project about a mysterious new material called graphene, which looked pretty cool. I was excited; I wanted to get into the lab, break the speed of light, create a warp gate into the future, and then build a flux capacitor. I walked on the first day, and my advisor, a fellow named Dr. David Newell, handed me scotch tape.

You can imagine my disappointment. No fame? No flux capacitor? Disgruntled, I spent my first few weeks trying to find a process to isolate graphene on tape and then see it under an optical microscope (yeah you can see an atom thick material with your eyes. How bizarre.). I played with new kinds of tape; I massaged the piece of graphite differently; at one point I sang to the graphite. And one day, EUREKA! An atom thick layer of graphite! In the next six weeks, our team produced more and more graphene. With some pieces we were able to grow (yes, grow) electrical contacts onto the graphene. We explored many properties: electron densities, electrical conductivity, optical properties etc. My personal project was to construct a Quantum Hall Device with graphene to use as a highly precise standard of electrical resistance. By the end of my 9 weeks, I got to witness the Quantum Hall Effect (a Nobel Prize winner itself) in real-time on graphene. It was surreal, and I really couldn’t appreciate the magnitude of that result. In my freshmen year, I got to work with a team of world-class scientists and engineers on one (and eventually two) Nobel Prize science experiments. Not bad.

Research can be incredible. You could be working on something that will eventually change the world, whether it’s energy, computing, medicine, robotics, fluid dynamics, or the other uncountable fields of research. The variety is huge: today I’m working with thermoelectric energy. If you’re passionate about it, there will be moments that you will remember forever because you really do have the potential to make ground-breaking accomplishments. Penn State is one of the nation’s largest research institutes. We spend over $800 million on research a year and have the results to show for it. If you’re looking for research, Penn State is one of the best places to be.

That being said, research is nothing like the classroom – in fact it’s nearly the opposite. In class, we know there’s an answer. We’re lectured on theories and findings; it’s like listening to a story. In research, we’re literally working on things that no one has tried before. No one knows the answer; there is no textbook to research. Your ideas are as good as your professor’s. It is up to you to try new things and think creatively and critically. That could be anything – even playing with scotch tape. In research, you are writing the story.

So when you consider research, think carefully. Research requires patience, creativity, and above all else, passion. You can’t be afraid to make mistakes, because making mistakes is just the next step in the research process. But if you stick it out, you may find that research is amazing. You never know what you will find, or where you will find it whether it’s in sunlight, in your cells, or in the tip of your pencil.