Thin Films and the

Magnetocaloric Effect
Kyle Hilliard
My Mentor, Dr. Dhananjay Kumar

● Professor of Mechanical Engineering for NC A&T

● PREM Director, NCAT-Cornell CREEM Partnership

● Research Interests:

○ Thin films

○ Nanoscale materials

○ Alternative energy
Graduate/Undergraduate Student Partnerships
Kaushik Sarkar (pictured left)
● PhD Student (Mechanical
Engineering) at North Carolina A&T

Vanessa Jones (pictured right)

● Undergraduate Student at North
Carolina A&T - Physics Major
Objectives
● Learn more about Mechanical Engineering
○ Gain hands-on experience
○ Make a decision about my engineering discipline
● Conduct Research pertaining to Mechanical Engineering
and the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering
My Experience - Virtual
● Weekly Reports, Meetings, Assigned Literature Readings to learn more
about Thin Films, Thin Film Deposition techniques, types of Thin Films
(nanowires, nanodots), materials used in Thin Films, etc.
○ Deposition Techniques: Focus on Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD), Spin
Coating, Sputtering Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE)
● NSF-related meetings
○ February 15th - NCAT & Cornell PREM Presentation
○ February 24th - NCAT & Cornell Collaborative Research and Education in
Energy Materials (CREEM) Presentation to External Scientific Advisory Board
My Experience - Solidworks
● 20+ Hour Solidworks
(3D Modeling
Software) Project
replicating a schematic
of a standard PLD
system
Similar model.
My Experience - Hands-On
● Visited the lab numerous times over the course of 4 months
● Assisted with full pulsed laser deposition process
○ Full process = Cleaning the system & all materials, setting up PLD process, turning on and seeing
the laser fire, removing the substrate
■ Used sapphire for the substrate - 2nd hardest stone (diamond), easier to use in the PLD
process
■ Deposited on Titanium Nitride compound
● Assisted with submission of an abstract for NCAT’s Spring 2022 Undergraduate Research
& Creativity Symposium
○ Abstract topic: Fabrication of Iron Nanoparticles Embedded in Titanium Nitride Thin-Films for
magnetic refrigeration
○ Similar to the PLD process that I took part in
Discoveries
● Learned the truth behind the statement “mechanical engineering is the broadest
discipline”
○ My experience covered physics concepts, materials science concepts, 3d modeling,
and slightly touching on solid & fluid mechanics (analyzing the behaviors of materials
as they were subjected to changes in state of matter in the deposition process) as well
as thermodynamics (energy conversion)
● Learned more about mechanical engineering, materials science, and physics
● Gained understanding of the necessity of core classes
○ Physics, Calculus, Solidworks understanding was absolutely necessary in this project
● Learned about a possible cleaner energy alternative
○ Experience served as the base for my research paper
■ Combined knowledge gained from this experience on thin films and the
magnetocaloric effect to thin film solar cells, thin film lithium-ion batteries
Conclusion - My Takeaways
● Gave me a deeper understanding of Mechanical Engineering
○ Learned that Mechanical Engineering, while infinitely
interesting to me, is not my desired career goal
■ Industrial Engineering
○ Learned about Physics, Materials Science in the process
● Sparked interest in research as a concept
● Gave me an understanding of energy alternatives, rooted in
thin films