Jennifer Trinh, PhD
Low temperature properties of strong spin-orbit systems
Summer 2012 to May 2017
The phenomenon of spin-orbit coupling is known to many as simply a small correction to the Hamiltonian. However, among heavy element compounds, it is the foundation for a variety of interesting effects, including exotic band structures (as in the case of topological insulators, where SOC facilitates band inversion, which is a necessary ingredient), interesting transport properties (as in the case of the anomalous Hall effect or anisotropic magnetoresistance, which are due to spin-polarized scattering and a spin-orbital-related scattering cross-section deformation, respectively), and can even be used to manipulate spins in nonmagnetic materials, for possible use in logic, memory, or even quantum computing applications (a field now called spin-orbitronics). I've studied the magnetic, thermal, and transport properties of a number of large spin-orbit coupled (heavy element) materials at cryogenic temperatures (T = 2K - 300K; yes, that's Kelvin!).
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See publications page for more details on specific projects.
Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative (YETI)
Winter/Spring 2011
The YETI is a collaborative effort among several institutions worldwide to observe young exoplanet transits. These transit observations provide data on how the motions of these planets change with time (if at all) and may help with finding and characterizing new exoplanets in the future. The international nature of the work allows for observation of transits in all different directions and times.

I participated in the YETI work done at Swarthmore College under the supervision of Dr. Eric Jensen and Dr. David Cohen.

For more information: http://www.astro.uni-jena.de/YETI.html 
Organic photovoltaics for MEMS devices
Summer 2010
Organic photovoltaics offer many advantages over traditional silicon solar cells, such as transparency, flexible substrates, and a variety of fabrication methods (spray painting, spin-coating, printing, etc.) for low-cost production and novel applications. An common donor polymer for OPVs is P3HT (poly-3-hexylthiophene). I fabricated P3HT-based solar cells for use in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and determined the efficacy of using dichlorobenzene versus chloroform as the solvent for the active polymer. I found that the dichlorobenzene solution dried more slowly, which allowed the polymers to relax into a more uniform state locally. However, the polymer was not as miscible in dichlorobenzene as in chloroform, which dried much more quickly. Thus, chloroform resulted in better performance.

I performed this work at the University of South Florida as part of their summer REU program under Dr. Xiaomei Jiang. ​ For more information: http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR11/Event/144672 http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~xjiang/
Java applets for use in undergraduate classrooms
Summer 2008
Easy Java Simulations (EJS) is an open-source software program that allows for the quick construction and deployment of Java applets. I worked to explore the capabilities of EJS and created a package for use in undergraduate physics courses, including applets to teach students about topics in basic kinematics. These applets allow for student interaction and include questions to get students thinking along the right track.

This work was completed under the mentorhsip of Dr. Amy Bug (now Dr. Amy Graves) at Swarthmore College.

For more information:
http://www.opensourcephysics.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=8697
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR09/Event/96624