Visit to Oxford University - Department of Materials
On Wednesday, the 15th of March, a group of physics students had the opportunity to visit the Oxford materials department. This I must say, was one of our most exciting and fruitful trips to date! We learnt about properties of materials which help us build better and more sustainable machines, like research into better batteries for electric aircraft, and mind-blowing equipment and materials, that I've only read about in textbooks. Examples of these are superconductors and STEMs (scanning and transmission electron microscopes) that are capable of science fiction like levitation and seeing actual atoms, throwing ions to cut material right down at atom level precision!
The professors were truly trailblazers and extremely helpful and friendly, they had such infectious passion too!
We also made our very own solar cells from a technology known as DSSC, which can even turn windows into sustainable power sources.
The insights into material science and physics have inspired me greatly to learn more about the mysterious and thrilling world around us.