Physics students win prizes at SAIP conference

Three students from the Department of Physics were awarded various prizes during the prestigious banquet evening of the 55^th South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) conference. The conference took place during the week of 27 – 30 September at the CSIR International Conference Centre in Pretoria. The UP department of physics was represented at the conference by two undergraduate and 15 postgraduate students, who all presented either a poster or an oral presentation on research they conducted in the department.

Jacque Pienaar, an Honours physics student, won the prize for best poster in the Condensed Matter and Material Science category.  His poster, titled ‘Comparison of two models for field enhanced emission through phonon assisted tunnelling using DLTS measurements’ resulted from a third year project he finished under the supervision of Dr. Walter Meyer and Prof Danie Auret.

Louwrens van Schalkwyk received the prize for the best MSc oral presentation in the Applied and Industrial Physics category for his presentation on ‘Calibration of an optoelectronic system for the study of solar blind AlGaN-based UV photodiodes’.

Edwin Mapasha was awarded the prize for best MSc presentation in the Condensed Matter and Material Science specialist group on his work titled ‘Ab initio studies of staggered Li adatoms on graphene’.

These students did not only receive certificates for the various awarded, but they also walked away with some cash prizes, sponsored by the SAIP and Industry. The SAIP give these prizes on a yearly basis, to reward excellent presentations of students and to encourage them to continue their exceptional efforts as young scientists.