Pay Range $18.20-$19.16/hr Starting July 2 – Ending August 05 (six weeks) (summer pay period) Starting August 06 – Ending September 02 (four weeks) (fall pay period)

For a maximum of 6 hours per week

Job description: physics faculty in collaboration with a physics alumnus inventor seek a technically versatile student to help develop and perform optical measurement techniques for characterizing the properties of single walled carbon nanotube suspensions. This will be an important component of the creation of systematic and reproducible processing of carbon nanotubes aimed at separating semiconducting from metallic nanotubes, a key precursor to the development of chemical and biological sensors. Student will learn and observe nanoparticle safety regimens, develop and employ a method for measuring suspension concentrations using a optical transmission and scattering, and perform spectroscopic measurements aimed at assessing the purity of the suspensions after various processing steps. The student may also be asked to help run some of the processing that involves careful mass measurements, ultrasound “sonication”, centrifugation, and gel column separation.

Minimum requirements: prior experience with analog circuit design using operational amplifiers and with optical sensors. Also prior experience in basic length, mass, and volume measurements.

Preferred requirements: experience in performing and interpreting optical spectroscopic measurements, in testing/calibrating analog sensors and signal conditioning circuits, in constructing optical assemblies using lenses and/or mirrors, and in computer aided design of structural supports for optical components.