First CPE-CSEM student exchange

A novel student exchange programme between Imperial College London and CSEM Brazil took place in October 2011.

The Centre for Plastic Electronics at Imperial College had the pleasure to host 6 students from Minas Gerais state, Brazil, sponsored by CSEM Brazil Innovations Centre, a private non-profit institution located at Belo Horizonte.

This programme follows on from a Memorandum of Understanding recently signed between Professor Donal Bradley, Dr Tiago Alves from CSEM and Professor Jose Policarpo from FAPEMIG (see the full story here).

The Brazilian PhD students, selected for their academic excellence as well as the nature of their research project, arrived in London on Sunday 2nd October to embark on a 2 week intensive programme in plastic electronics. This programme is specifically designed to expose them to a broad spectrum of plastic electronics activities, spanning modelling theory, polymer processing and device fabrication. At the heart is a 12-hour modelling course with Professor Jenny Nelson and a 5-day device fabrication workshop in the CPE clean room where all students will produce organic photovoltaic devices under the guidance of Dr Pabitra Shakya Tuladhar. The visit will also see them paired with some of our PE-DTC students to complete a series of mini-research projects based around topics such as conjugated polymer synthesis, organic transistor and semiconductor diode characterisation and thin-film fabrication for plastic electronic devices.