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Semi-annual Report

SPIE Student Chapter at University of Notre Dame

By Guanjun Zhang

May 23, 2005

In the spring of 2005, the SPIE student chapter at University of Notre Dame remains an active student body in both academic and social areas at the University of Notre Dame. We successfully created many opportunities for our members to share their knowledge, experiences and personal interests. More and more student members are now involved in the work of managing the student chapter.

Highlight: One SPIE academic award winner Two SPIE group meetings Three academic seminars

Semi-annual Report (Jan 2005- May 2005)

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Working meetings: • January 13, 2005 LaFortune Student Center

All new elected officers of our SPIE student chapter and our former president, Min Hu, met and discussed our new year’s schedule. Grant and funding applications became our first task in the new year. Following the meeting, several things were done: grant and award applications were submitted, the website was rebuilt, and group activities were scheduled.

• March 31, 2005 LaFortune Student Center

Six members, including all officers, attended the meeting. Guanjun reviewed the work in the past two months and notified all attendants of updated progress in funding applications. Three seminar dates were finalized, and a schedule was published on our website after the meeting. An initial contact for an invited talk was made quickly after the meeting by Di Liang.

Academic seminars:

• April 14, 2005 Ning Su 258 Fitzpatrick Hall

One of our new members, Ning Su, gave a talk on solar cells. Nine members attended the seminar, and lunch was provided with pizza and soda. The talk lasted for one hour and was followed by twenty minutes of discussion. Students from both EE and Chemistry Departments shared opinions on related research progress.

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Semi-annual Report (Jan 2005- May 2005)

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• April 28, 2005 Min Hu 257 Fitzpatrick Hall

• May 10, 2005 Kai Sun 258 Fitzpatrick Hall

Award and Funding: • Katherine L. Hull, from the Department of Chemistry, is a 2005 recipient of

SPIE Educational Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering due to her outstanding research achievements in the area of nanotechnology. She is also the Vice President of our student Chapter.

• The chapter received the travel grant from SPIE for attending the 50th SPIE annual meeting in San Diego.

• The student chapter received the 2005 activity grant from SPIE.

• Our chapter received funding for the “High School Science Tour” project from the Great Lake SPIE student chapter.

Kai Sun gave a great talk on “Optical Investigations of semiconductor quantum dots in high spatial resolution”. In this presentation, Kai summarized his research achievements towards his Ph.D. degree. 15 students from the EE Department, including SPIE student members, attended the presentation.

Min Hu, one of our most active members and previous chapter president, gave a talk on his current research project “Coherent excitation of vibrational modes in nanospheres and nanorods”. Nine members attended the seminar, enjoyed Papa John’s pizza, and exchanged information of campus life and summer plans.

Semi-annual Report (Jan 2005- May 2005)

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Members: Currently, all of our 10 members are graduate students from a variety of disciplines from photonic integrated circuit, laser, to digital image processing, as listed in the following table. Name (Last, First) Department Email Address Position Hu, Min Chem. mhu@nd.edu Su, Ning E.E. Ning.Su.12@nd.edu Huang, Mingjun E.E. mhuang@nd.edu Hull, Katherine Chem. richter.17@nd.edu Vice President Liang, Di E.E. dliang@nd.edu Sun, Kai E.E. ksun@nd.edu Secretary Petrova, Hristina Chem. hpetrova@nd.edu Wang, Jusong E.E. Jwang1@nd.edu Treasure Wang, Xuan Chem. xwang7@nd.edu Zhang, Guanjun E.E. gzhang@nd.edu President

Future plans: • Picnic and party for all student members in the summer. • Sponsor student members to the SPIE Annual Meeting. • Invite an outside speaker to meet our members and give a seminar. • Schedule three to five more academic seminars to the end of 2005. • Start the “Tour for High School Students” project in Aug. 2005. • Set up a booth at the Student Activity Day 2005 at the University of Notre

Dame to introduce undergraduate students to SPIE and our student chapter.

Semi-annual Report (Jan 2005- May 2005)