KUAS Engineering Students Receive Excellent Paper and Young Research Awards at ICPE 2024

Daniel Saldivar Ayala, a second-year master’s course student at KUAS Graduate School of Engineering, and Abbhiraj Singh, a fourth-year bachelor student at KUAS Faculty of Engineering, have simultaneously received the ICPE 2024 Excellent Paper Award and the ICPE 2024 Young Research Award from the 20th International Conference on Precision Engineering (ICPE2024) held in Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, for their presentations entitled “Ultrasonic-assisted fabrication of water-dispersed photonic crystals for self-reporting surface pressure sensor application” and “Surface modification of Si-MEMS using electron beam induced silicon nanodots”, respectively. Those awards recognize outstanding research work and great presentation by young researchers at the ICPE 2024, respectively.

Under Professor Takahiro Namazu’s supervision, Daniel is researching structural color using nanoparticles. He manufactured a glass chip sensor containing silica nanoparticles with a diameter of approximately 200 nm arranged in a face-centered cubic structure, and succeeded in expressing the stress distribution on the glass surface caused by applying external mechanical load as a distribution of structural color. Abbhiraj is researching silicon nanodots creation mechanism and their application to strength control. He used a technology to form crystalline silicon nanodots in a silica thin film by electron beam irradiation, and discovered the possibility of artificially controlling the strength of silicon MEMS (short for Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, which refers to small electromechanical devices made by using semiconductor processes).

Daniel said, “In Mexico, I studied biosystems. I am interested in the combination of biotechnology and mechanics, so I joined the Nanomechatronics Laboratory at KUAS, which is actively conducting research on nano-sized mechanical materials. Mechanical physical phenomena in the nano region are so interesting, and I will continue to work hard to create new devices”. Abbhiraj said, “I have been researching in the Nanomechatronics Laboratory as part of the Cornerstone Project (a student-led self-motivated project at KUAS) since my second year of undergraduate studies. It is difficult but interesting to correctly understand physical phenomena at the true nano-size of several tens of atoms and use them in engineering. I will continue to work hard”. Professor Namazu praised the awards, saying, “It is great honor that two students from one lab received two different awards at the same time. I am so happy that our excellent students, who work diligently on their research activities every day, have been recognized”.

Professor Hiroshi Kawakami, Faculty of Engineering