Army engineer talks at prestigious international conference

By ARL Public AffairsJuly 23, 2018

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1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
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2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – U.S. Army Research Laboratory electronics engineer Dr. Mahesh Neupane speaks to a group of leading scientists, researchers and students at the 76th Device Research Conference, the longest running device research meeting in the world, at the Universit... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

ADELPHI, Md. -- A U.S. Army Research laboratory electronics engineer recently participated as an invited speaker and judge at the 76th Device Research Conference held at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Dr. Mahesh Neupane, who is based at ARL West in Los Angeles, California, attended the conference to speak about his work centered on providing Soldiers with more efficient devices on the battlefield.

The DRC is the longest running device research meeting in the world, and serves as a leading conference to report the latest discoveries in device science technology and modeling.

According to the technical chair of the conference, Professor Deji Akinwande of the University of Texas at Austin, "This year more than 200 attendees from leading universities and industries attended the conference. While more than 50 percent of attendees were domestic, there was a strong international participation from Europe and Asia."

"I presented research covering issues and challenges associated with the integration of 2-D/3-D systems for possible Army applications," Neupane said. "This project is supported by the ARL Director's Strategic Initiative program on understanding the transport properties in complex crystalline materials based on van der Waals Heterostructures and exploiting the electronic interface in stacked 2-D atomic layered materials."

Neupane, the theoretical lead for this project, stated that this research venture is a definite challenge, but at its core, always has the needs of the Soldier in mind.

"Integration for novel 2-D materials with the traditional 3-D materials is a high-risk, high-reward project, and the theoretical/modeling research effort provides support and guidance to the in-house experimental efforts," Neupane said. "If successful, this effort could provide lighter, faster and robust efficient radio-frequency electronic devices for battlefield needs."

For more than seven decades, the DRC has brought together leading scientists, researchers and students to share their latest discoveries in device science, technology and modeling, and Neupane was honored to be a part of it all.

"Participating and judging events like this allows ARL subject matter experts such as myself in the area of novel materials to identify mutual interest and possible collaboration with research groups around the world," Neupane said. "I was also able to interact with young researchers and discuss the possibilities available at ARL. Providing mentorships to students contributes to the preparation of a well-trained technical workforce in areas of interest to the Army, and I was glad to be a source of information in this area."

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The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.

Related Links:

U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command

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