Brian Foley and Brian Dononvan take First and Second Place in student presentation competition at EMA 2014!

Brian Foley and Brian Donovan were awarded first and second place for student presentations at the Electronic Materials and Applications Conference this year.  Brian Foley presented work on the glass-like thermal conductivity of fully-crystalline Strontium Niobate thin films.  Through his measurements made using time-domain thermoreflectance experiments, he was able to show that the interfaces between adjacent slabs of octahedra in the naturally-layered structure are the dominant phonon scattering mechanism.  Brian Donovan presented work on grain size effects on thermal conductivity of Barium Titanate.  Using time-domain thermoreflectance he showed that thermal conductivity was limited by grain size and film thickness of the material system.  Congrats to the Brians!

Brian Foley receiving 1st place award at EMA 2014 banquet.

Brian Donovan receiving 2nd place award at EMA 2014 banquet.

Brian Donovan is quite proud after just finishing his first oral presentation as a U.Va. grad student.