The First KUAS Doctoral Candidate Defends His Thesis

On January 30, 2023 Keisuke Wakamoto, a student in the Graduate School of Engineering at KUAS, publicly defended his doctoral thesis. His was the first public doctoral thesis defense among the first intake graduate students who entered the newly formed KUAS Department of Mechanical and Electrical System Engineering at its inception.

Mr. Wakamoto submitted a doctoral thesis titled “Mechanical Reliability of Sintered Nano Silver for Power Device Packaging”. More than 30 people attended his defense, including international students from the Graduate School of Engineering. Mr. Wakamoto’s presentation and the subsequent Q&A session were conducted in English.

Mr. Wakamoto’s research focuses on the failure mechanism of new power semiconductor (SiC) bonds with metal substrate. “I felt that Professor Namazu’s laboratory at KUAS, having deep knowledge in the field of micro-nano mechanical engineering, was the perfect place to solve problems. Pursuing research both at my workplace and KUAS, I would like to lead the research in this field in the future. With that, I decided to begin my research at KUAS,” stated Mr. Wakamoto.

Mr. Wakamoto joined the doctoral program at the KUAS Graduate School of Engineering in April 2020 while working at ROHM Semiconductor Corporation’s Research and Development Center. He completed his doctoral thesis while balancing his full-time work with research at school. After his defense Mr. Wakamoto commented, “I would like to proceed with the validation of the results obtained in my doctoral thesis and strive to contribute to the further implementation of silicon carbide.” 

（Tadayuki Imai, Faculty of Engineering）
（Go Urata, Public Relations Center）