Ling Ju, a doctoral candidate in the Materials Science and Engineering department at Lehigh University, successfully defended her dissertation April 12, 2018.
Ju is part of the Strandwitz Research Group led by Nicholas C. Strandwitz and is the first Ph.D. graduate to come from the group.
"I'm very proud of her," Strandwitz said. "Senior faculty members always talk about their first students, and how they were so good. I’m happy to say I’m in that camp. Ling and fellow Ph.D. student Rod Marstell are very dedicated researchers and excellent team members."
Ju’s dissertation, "New Chemistries and Processing in Atomic and Molecular Layer Deposition of Inorganic and Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Thin Films," explored how single atomic or molecular layers can be deposited on a surface at a time, which can result in the growth of a thin film that is many layers thick.
Thin films, which are critical to the microelectronics industry, are found in virtually all electronics, and the drive to decrease the size of each electrical component has now reached the point where atomic scale control of film growth is essential. Ling’s work on molecular layer deposition provides unique insights into this growth process and the methods she has developed could potentially be used in advanced electronic systems.
Ju will leave the University at the end of the month and head to Santa Clara, California to begin her career as a Process Engineer for Applied Materials. Ju will research protective thin film layers for OLED displays, which is said to be the most promising next generation display technology.
Strandwitz joined Lehigh in 2013 after a postdoctoral fellowship at California Institute of Technology from 2009 to 2012. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2009.
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