Research Projects
Guidelines
The idea of a Research Project is to tackle a single topic (which could be composed of several intertwined problems) borrowed from recent research literature and spend time on researching references, doing computation, and writing a Report. This should allow students to:
- practice how a scientist really thinks - if you learn anything in school, it should be how to think; memorization is less useful since you can always look it up.
- get insight into the science of tomorrow which is not the science of yesterday; the new ideas of tomorrow, in any branch of science, will not come from just decades old physics.
- get experience in the same activities that Ph.D. scientists conduct on a daily basis.
When you have enough results to tell a coherent story, you should end the Research Project by writing (in a clear writing style, obeying the rules of grammar and spelling) and submitting a Report. The Report should be understandable to a person who has not done the assignment.
Format of the report for the midterm project
The midterm project should be finalized as a paper similar to research articles dealing with Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics posted every day on arxiv.org. The format of the paper mimicking this is:
- Title, Name of the person and affiliation, Abstract, Introduction, Models and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References.
- Paper should be typed in two column style. For this you can use:
- LaTeX (as offered by Overleaf) in the form of RevTeX style for Physical Review journals, as exemplified by: PHYS 824 template and the embedded EPS figure for this example. You can also find more examples of typing mathematical formulas in Math into LaTeX: How to Beautify Equations (and the embedded EPS figure).
- Open Office or Microsoft Word but with additional packages (such as MathType) so you can type professionally looking equations.
- The final report of the midterm project should be produced as a PDF file and emailed to the instructor, together with your Python, Matlab etc. codes (compress everything into a single file) before the deadline.
Format of the report for the final project
The final project will be reported through a Poster Session, during the final exam time, and it will also include peer reviewing. To make a poster, you can use this PowerPoint Template. Poster printing is available in Smith Hall and its cost will be covered by the Department.
Midterm Research Project
- To be announced during the Fall of 2025.
Final Research Project
- To be announced during the Fall of 2025.
