Materials Matters

Vol 1. No. 1

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PRESIDENT'S JOURNAL

By A. Leslie Evelyn

On behalf of the Alabama A&M University Chapter of the Materials Research Society I extend greetings to you and welcome to our new members. November 1991 marks the inception of our newsletter, Materials Matters. MM is the brainchild of the newly appointed executive committee of the AAMU MRS and it will serve as a vehicle of information transfer between our society and MM's readers. We hope that this will be a useful tool in the operation of our society. I encourage you to use it and make it work for you. It can become an invaluable (or valueless-<MI>Ed.<D>) means of communication among ourselves and others. For any information concerning MM or for submission of articles and information please contact our eminent editor-in-chief, Eric K. Williams or any of the MRS officers. I do wholeheartedly encourage submission of articles for our next publication.

Welcome

To our new members: Welcome. We are happy that you considered the AAMU MRS as part of your professional and academic career. By being a member you can make use of our society to improve your professional and social relationships and profit from whatever services and benefits that we have to offer. If you have not already done so, I do encourage you to also become a member of the Materials Research Society. Membership applications can be obtained from any of the MRS officers.

Thank you all for supporting the activities that we've held so far and we seek your support for future events. One upcoming activity of note is the Second North Alabama Materials research Student Conference which is scheduled for April 11, 1992 on the A&M campus. I urge you to start thinking about your abstracts for this conference. Flyers officially announcing the conference will be circulated in the near future.

We hope that you have had a successful semester thus far and we take this opportunity to wish each of you very good holiday season.

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ABOUT THE AAMU MRS

By The President

Prior to 1988 only 10-15 members of the National MRS were from Alabama. In that year the Alabama Section of the MRS was formed and the AAMU MRS sprang up in the spring of 1989. Alabama membership is now over 90. The following persons are currently serving as officers of the executive committee of the AAMU MRS for the 1991-92 academic year:

President: Leslie Evelyn

Vice-President: Angela Hodges

Secretary: Eric K. Williams

Treasurer: John Idasetima.

Trent Griffin is Liason to NASA, Chris Cochrane is Liason to the American Society of Materials (ASM) and Deon Williams is in charge of publicity.

Our faculty advisor is Dr. Daryush Ila, who also serves as Chairman of the Membership Committee, member of JMR Publication committee and member of the Academic Affairs committee of the MRS.

List of University Chapter Benefits

Ten free copies of MRS BULLETIN per month.

Cash support to cover expenses for distinguished speakers.

Travel money to MRS meetings ($500/yr).

Elegibility for Graduate Student Awards and short course scholarships at the Spring and Fall MRS meetings.

Opportunity to work as Symposium Aides at an MRS meeting.

Use of Job Placement Services at MRS meetings.

Yearly subscription of Journal of Materials Education.

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REPORT ON FIRST NORTH ALABAMA MATERIALS RESEARCH STUDENT CONFERENCE

By Leslie Evelyn, President

The Alabama A&M University Chapter of the Materials Research Society (MRS) hosted the First North Alabama Materials Research Student Conference on April 13, 1991. The inaugural conference took the form of poster presentations.

Registration and coffee began promptly at 9:00 a.m. and posters were exhibited from 9:30 a.m. until closing. Hemanta Jena, president of the AAMU chapter of the MRS delivered the welcoming address. Mr. Jena spoke briefly about the chapter and its accomplishments and he thanked everyone for their support and participation. Leslie Evelyn, co-ordinator of the conference organizational committee, chaired the conference.

The keynote speakers were Dr. James Williams of the Solid State Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN. and Mr. Arthur Henderson of the Materials and Processing division of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL. Dr. Williams' spoke on "Ion Implantation of Metals and Ceramics," and Mr. Henderson's address was "Advanced Metallic Materials Research and Development at Marshall Space Flight Center."

Prizes were awarded to the best three presenters:

First prize:

"Synthesis of Barium Ferrite by a Glycine-Nitrate Combustion Method," M. L. Wade and D. G. Agresti, University of Alabama in Birmingham.

Presenter: M. L. Wade.

Second prize:

"Construction and Testing of the New Fluorescent Materials Test Chamber at the Alabama A&M University Accelerator Laboratory," W. A. Hollerman, L. R. Holland and D. Nisen, Alabama A&M University and J. H. Fisher and G. A. Shelby, Nichols Research Corporation.

Presenter: W. A. Hollerman.

Third prize:

"Changes in the Raman Spectra of Phenolic Resin During Transformation into a Polymeric Carbon," Hemanta K. Jena, G. M. Jenkins and P. Chandrasekhar, AAMU.

Presenter: Hemanta K. Jena.

Dr. Daryush Ila of the Physics Department of Alabama A&M University and advisor to the AAMU chapter of the MRS delivered the closing remarks.

The AAMU Student MRS Chapter hopes that the conference will grow and provide students with a forum for presenting their research to fellow students and that it will help forge new links between student materials researchers in North Alabama.

Special thanks is extended to the co-sponsors of the conference:

EPSCoR (Alabama)

ASM (Huntsville)

MRS (Alabama)

Alabama Space Grant Consortium.

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STUDENTS PRESENT PAPERS AT ALABAMA MATERIALS RESEARCH CONFERENCE

Four AAMU MRS Chapter members presented three papers and one poster at the Fifth Annual Alabama Materials Research Conference held the 25th and 26th of September in Birmingham. The University of Alabama at Birmingham hosted this years conference which was sponsored by Alabama EPSCoR and co-sponsored by the Alabama MRS section. Incoming national MRS president Slade Cargill spoke at the conference banquet.

Hemanta Jena presented a poster on "Changes in the Raman Spectra of Phenolic Resin During Transformation into a Polymeric Carbon"; co-authors G.M. Jenkins, L.R. Holland and P. Chandrasekhar.

Leslie Evelyn presented a paper on the "Thermal Transition of Phenolformaldehyde to Polymeric Carbon: An Ion Beam Analysis Approach"; co-authors G.M. Jenkins, D. Ila, L.R. Holland, R.L. Zimmerman, J. Thompson, A. Hodges.

Deon Williams spoke on "Rutherford Backscattering Study of Zinc Diffusion Into Un-doped Gallium Arsenide At Temperatures Below 600<198>C". The co-author was D. Ila.

Eric K. Williams gave a stunning presentation on "C-V Analysis of Damage Induced by MeV Proton Beams on Al-Si Schottky Barrier Diodes". His esteemed co-authors were D. Ila and C. Narayan (of UMass-Lowell).

Andy Hollerman, who is a student, but not a member of the AAMU MRS Chapter at press time, presented a poster on the flourescent materials test chamber that he is using at the Howard J. Foster Center for the Irradiation of Materials at AAMU.

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Halloween Party

The MRS Halloween party at Chris Cochrane's house attracted several MRS members and friends of members and Chris' dog and cat. Many people brought food and Chris prepared some very good mulled cider. While the MRS Chapter advisor slept on a couch almost everyone else played a game of Pictionary. The editor, who loathes the game, turned the timer.

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Pizza! Pizza!

New Members!

The MRS hosted a pizza social/membership drive November 7, 1991. The attendees quickly consumed pizza pies as MRS chapter president A. Leslie Evelyn canvassed the room for new members. The pizza social resulted in the addition of seven new members and the demolition of eight innocent pizzas. The new members are: William Bryant, Bhasker Dachepalli, Mostafa Dokhanian, Kevin Justin, Dan Yang, Lannette D. Ferguson and Daniel B. Nisen. Prizes were not given for the most or fastest pizza consumption.