The summer school, organized by Dr. Jochen Friedrich of the IISB, provides an understanding of why crystals have been a fascinating material to scientists and engineers until today. Ir-respective of technical backgrounds from chemical engineering to nanotechnology, MAP students could attend the workshop-type of summer school, and learned a lot about the principles of the fas-cinating material crystal.
The initial part of the sessions consisted in presentations and seminars given by the experts of the Fraunhofer IISB answering the basic questions from what a crystal is to the advanced studies in dealing with the understanding and utilisation of these structures. For Sharanya Nair, student of the Elite Graduate Program ”Advanced Materials and Processes”, the best part of the summer school was the experts’ way on how they responded spontaneously in their teaching to a mixture of students from various backgrounds. Even for students from a chemical engineering background the fundamentals of crystal growth were made crystal clear. “The learning atmosphere was amazing and this motivated the students to curiously think about these materials and ask questions.” The question-answer-session was also found to be very interesting with the students all walking on the path of “out of the box thinking”.
For the presentation sessions, the MAP students had been divided into three teams and Dr. Friedrich assigned to each team the most advanced topics. The students then had more than a month’s time to prepare presentations within the teams. This part of the summer school was found to be very motivating as students were doing their own research over the latest topics. They were fascinated by how the basics of crystals are combined with various other properties in the advanced applications. The teams learned about the developments taking place in the areas dealing with gallium oxide, synthetic diamond, and quantum technologies. In between the research, the students also had meetings with Dr. Friedrich who clarified queries and further assisted the students in improving their presentations. Finally, all students gave presentations on the different areas. Each team member enthusiastically participated in this session by presenting the outcomes of the research and by contributing in a question-answer-session for about one hour.
At the end of the summer school, the students enjoyed an impressive tour of the Fraunhofer IISB with Dr. Friedrich. They gained highly interesting impressions of the workspaces and laboratories as well as of the machines and equipment in operation there.
