Congratulations, Tania and David!

Tania Sandoval and David Bergsman have both been honored with National Student Awards from the American Vacuum Society (AVS). The awards are to recognize and encourage excellence in graduate studies in the sciences and technologies of interest to AVS, and awards are only given to 6-8 students annually. The awards are given to graduate students for impactful work in their field and often encompasses the whole of their graduate research.

Tania received the Russell & Sigurd Varian Award, given to one of the top 3 finalists. Her work has been impactful to field of surface science as she studies the organic functionalization of semiconductor surfaces. She has specifically studied various multifunctional molecules binding to germanium, and has used extensive in situ and ultra-high vacuum tools to probe the surface bonding and energetics. Her work also bridges experiment and theory, and she uses density functional theory (DFT) calculations to support and inform her experiments. Her work has significant applications in the semiconductor industry and the concepts and tools she develops in her work are applicable to a variety of other systems as well.

David received the Graduate Research Award for his impactful work in understanding molecular layer deposition and some of the fundamental growth mechanisms of these complex materials. He has specifically studied the morphology of the polymer thin films he is able to synthesize by MLD, and has worked to learn how the polymer chains are oriented in the film, how the backbone of the polymers affects the film structure, and how the bonding and degradation mechanisms occur in the process. His materials have a variety of applications including pore-filling in semiconductor processing and metal-polymer hybrid materials for catalysis, both of which he has investigated and found promising results.