-By David Murphy, KAUST News

On November 16, 2017, the KAUST Nanofabrication Core Lab (NCL) hosted students from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals' (KFUPM) Electrical Engineering Department. The visiting students were supervised by their course instructor, KAUST alumnus Dr. Jhonathan Prieto Rojas. The KFUPM students and Prieto Rojas, who joined KFUPM as assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering Department in the fall of 2015, toured the campus and the KAUST Core Labs facilities. The visiting students were shown some of the processing equipment available in the NCL cleanroom, where they also attended demonstrations on micro and nanofabrication techniques and technologies.

Prieto Rojas, who is a founding KAUST class alumnus, completed his master's degree ('10) and Ph.D. ('14) in Professor Muhammad Mustafa Hussain's Integrated Nanotechnology Laboratory. He felt that a visit highlighting KAUST Core Labs' impressive capabilities would inspire the students to pursue careers in research

"This was a perfect chance to expose the students to an outstanding cleanroom facility where future technologies are being developed. By the end of the visit and the course, the students were very excited to continue with a research-based career," Prieto Rojas emphasized.

Creating a new learning experience

Last semester, Prieto Rojas started a new course at KFUPM's Electrical and Engineering Department entitled "Introduction to Micro and Nano electronics." The KAUST visit was arranged as part of the course. Prieto Rojas felt it was important for the students to see in person the main equipment and advanced materials involved in micro and nanotechnologies.

"Although several visits were conducted at our KFUPM Center of Research Excellence in Nanotechnology (CENT), the plan was always to visit a running cleanroom, and the nanofabrication facility at KAUST was an excellent choice due to its cutting-edge equipment and my previous experience in the Cleanroom. In fact, I still keep in contact with some of the staff there, who were more than welcoming and supportive of the visit. I would like to especially highlight the great support of Ahad Syed, NCL safety and facility lead, and Gheorghe Iordache, NCL director, in the organization and success of the visit," he said.

A warm on campus welcome

Students from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals' (KFUPM) Electrical Engineering department visit to the KAUST Core Lab facilities in November 2017. Photo by Lilit Hovhannisyan.

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The KFUPM group was welcomed to the NCL by Daniel Acevedo-Feliz, facilities director for Material Characterization and the Nanofabrication Core Labs, and Iordache. After introductions, the students started their cleanroom tutorial with a basic safety course hosted by NCL Safety Specialist Ibrahim Mohd.

This safety course covered the necessary safety requirements for working in a cleanroom environment, including gowning protocol, hazard awareness and the understanding of evacuation procedure. After a demonstration in the cleanroom, where two sample silicon wafers were prepared with different flows, the visitors continued on to the Imaging and Characterization Core Lab (IAC) for a tour hosted by Wei Xu, the optical microscopy lead. The students were shown a selection of the cutting-edge instruments available in the IAC, such as the transmission electron microscopes (TEMs), the scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), the atomic force microscopes (AFM) and the confocal microscopes, among other instruments.

KAUST Core Labs staff took students from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals' (KFUPM) Electrical Engineering department on a tour of the University's Core Labs facilities in November 2017. Photo by Lilit Hovhannisyan.

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"Although the IAC was very impressive, the cleanroom tour and demo were the most exciting part of the visit," Prieto Rojas said. "In the cleanroom, the students went through the important gowning process and then observed processing demonstrations on different tools, including photolithography and dry etching. After the visit, the KFPUM students came away with a greater understanding of complexities of working in a cleanroom environment."

Ongoing research

Prieto Rojas' current research includes the development and characterization of novel materials, structures and techniques for wearable electronic systems.

"Regarding research, there are already plenty of collaboration projects involving several faculties from KAUST and KFUPM. I am also participating in the KAUST-KFUPM Initiative (KKI) program, which was initiated by KFUPM's Vice Rector and the KAUST Vice President for Research. I am also a co-investigator of the 'Biometric data-based crowd management and risk mitigation for high population events' project,'" he said.

Future collaborations

Jhonathan Prieto Rojas (right), assistant professor of electrical engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and a KAUST alumnus (M.S. '10; Ph.D. '14), receives thanks from the KAUST Core Labs staff for bringing his KFUPM students to the KAUST campus. Photo by Lilit Hovhannisyan.

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