Shoulders-Gray-Spindt Award 2017 for Iman Rastegar

Thermoelectronic energy converters potentially generate electricity from heat with very high efficiency. These converters require, however, materials with excellent electron emission and absorption properties. Chemical stability at high temperatures and small work functions are key requirements. Iman Rastegar Alam, a Ph.D. student at the Institute has designed an instrument to explore and characterize such materials. The quantum materials he analyzes are grown as films or multilayers in an advanced pulsed laser deposition system. After transfer in a vacuum suitcase, Iman Rastegar investigates these materials in his instrument under operation conditions. 

For this work on exploring oxide heterostructures for electron emission, Iman Rastegar Alam has been honored with the Shoulders-Gray-Spindt (SGS) Award 2017.

The Shoulders-Gray-Spindt (SGS) Award, named after the founders of vacuum nanoelectronics, Ken Shoulders, Henry Gray, and Capp Spindt, honors the work of young researchers in the field of vacuum nanoelectronics.