Testimonial Essay _  Sachi Awakura from Tokyo Institute of Technology

1.      The reason I participated in the program

I have always wanted to study abroad for the long term. It is because I want to acquire sufficient English and research skills that can be used worldwide. However, I am a junior student and do not have enough time to study abroad for a long period. Also, I thought going through a short-period study abroad before the long-term one would be helpful. Therefore, I applied for this KAIST short-term program.

There are two main reasons why I chose KAIST among other universities. One is that this institute is very famous in Korea as an advanced and professional national scientific institute. The other is that I could belong to a lab at KAIST. I had never joined one, and wanted to know the atmosphere of the lab, and what exactly the students are doing there.

2.      What the program is about, and what I learned from it.

I joined an OLED-related lab, named ADNC lab. This lab researches how to apply OLEDs to various things. The research themes are, for example, how to attach OLEDs to textiles or how to achieve a waterproof property.

OLEDs are highly expected displays as they can have flexibility and transparency, which are not achieved by conventional displays. However, they are very sensitive to moisture and water, so they must be separated from the ambient environment. The protection using a thin film over OLEDs is called encapsulation. My mentor student mainly researches encapsulation. I read her journal and learned the encapsulation layer she invented was composed of several layers. Each layer's material and thickness were all carefully considered from various points of view, such as transparency, flexibility, crack decoupling effect, internal residual stress, and Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE). Finally, WVTR, which is an indicator that shows how difficult water penetrates into the encapsulation layer, was measured to be kept low enough for washable uses.

As the program period was short, I was not able to conduct my research, but read several journals, saw the facilities in a large clean room, and watched some experiments. I was also allowed to participate in a lab meeting every week.

By reading several journals, I learned many representative measurement methods and phenomena such as ALD, cantilever test, Lambertian Reflection, and microcavity effects. I could ask questions to the mentor-student, which was very helpful for me to understand these.

I hardly ever read journals before I joined this lab since I had thought that journals were too challenging for me. However, I found out that if I read them carefully, I could understand them, and recognized that reading journals was a superb way to obtain plenty of knowledge in diverse fields. Before I came here, I only read the general introduction written on the homepage and thought this lab researched how to manufacture OLEDs themselves. However, it turned out that it studied the application of OLEDs. I am not disappointed with the difference, but if I had read journals beforehand, I would not have misunderstood it. When I choose a lab at Tokyo Tech, I will read not only labs’ homepages, but also the published journals.

The clean room was vast and occupied most of the first floor of the big building. It was so large that there were many rooms inside there and I could not see the end of the room. Five laboratories share the whole clean room. I was greatly impressed by the many experimental facilities there. For example, there was a large box with only Nitrogen inside to protect devices from oxidation, and a research member was conducting experiments there, only putting her hands on gloves. The gloves are attached to the box and completely shielded.

Apart from my studies, I enjoyed my free time with members very much. The members of the ADNC lab are all in a good mood regardless of their sex. They even hold birthday parties with each other. We often had meals together and sometimes, some of them took me to a restaurant by driving a car. All of them were so kind to me even though I stayed for a very short term. I deeply appreciate it.

3.      What I liked most about the program

The most precious experience for me was joining a lab meeting. I was extremely impressed by the enthusiasm toward research and the high presentation skills of all the members. The presentations are well organized, and they were all written in English. The presenters do not seem to be nervous at all, speaking speed is fast, the pronunciation is accurate and the voice is large enough without a microphone. In addition, there was no time lost between every presenter due to their perfect teamwork. The professor often asked questions and pointed out the insufficient parts, which made me learn how to conduct a study, in general. For instance, he pointed out why the presenter compared only 3 data, which was insufficient to understand the whole inclination. I learned the importance of having both a macroscopic view and a microscopic view.

Although I couldn’t understand most of the contents because of my poor knowledge, it was very worth listening to them. I was able to learn what I should be careful about when I conduct experiments and do my presentations. For the last 3 years, I had few opportunities to make or listen to a presentation face-to-face, which would negatively affect my presentation skills. Therefore, I was very happy to be able to listen to these presentations every week.

4.      How I think my experience in this program will affect my future studies and career

I am currently interested in semiconductors and thinking of belonging to a solar cell lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology. The lab I joined here was about OLEDs, which are different from solar cells, but have many common features as them. I felt studying something related to materials or light is interesting during studying OLEDs, and the solar cell lab at Tokyo Tech would be the best choice for me (Since there is no display-related lab at Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Tokyo Tech, I cannot study OLEDs there.)

There were many Ph.D. candidate students at the lab. All the master's degree students I talked to said they would get a Ph.D. degree. Surrounded by these people, I became to be motivated to go to a doctoral program. Since few people go to a doctoral program in Japan, even at Tokyo Tech, I used to think I might not be able to endure the long course. However, some of the Ph.D. candidate students said going to a master's degree course and not taking a Ph.D. course would be very insufficient to acquire research skills. The reason is that for the 1~2 years, in the beginning, I have to focus on reading journals and learning how to use equipment in a lab. Thus, only a master's degree period is too short to conduct my research. Therefore, I will positively consider going on to a doctoral program.

5.       

To sum up, I enjoyed a 1-month stay at KAIST very much. The lab was comfortable and the environment inside the KAIST campus seemed to meet all demands of students. I appreciate all of those who engaged in this program and strongly recommend to other Tokyo Tech students to participate in it.