Lynn Loo speaks quickly.
She doesn't use "uh's" or "hmm's" or "well's," and words easily flow from her mouth. She gives the impression that she's memorized and practiced the answer to every question well before you ask it.
Even if you hadn't looked at her list of accomplishments, you would know this woman is driven.
Loo, an assistant professor in UT's chemical engineering department, is one of MIT's Technology Review's "Top 100 Young Innovators" for this year, an award that recognizes outstanding scientific achievement by someone under the age of 35.
Loo was also named to the ACS/ Dreyfus PROGRESS Lectureship Rising Star Program and received an NSF CAREER award - all in 2004.
It's Loo's work in processing organic electronics that is getting her noticed.
The field is still in its infancy, and unlike conventional semiconductor devices, typically formed from patterned layers of silicon, insulators and metals, organic electronics are based on polymers. Made from repeating units of molecules, such as plastics and rubbers, polymers have different physical and electrical properties than silicon.
Polymers are flexible and cheap, and this opens up the possibility of a wide variety of products that aren't possible with silicon technology.
Many scientists are predicting wild futures for devices made from polymers, such as transportable lightweight television screens made from a sheet of plastic that can be rolled up and taken anywhere. And while this may seem futuristic, the technology may one day be possible, thanks to the techniques Loo has developed.
Although Loo is thriving in the academic environment, she is still somewhat of an anomaly: a female engineer in academia. At universities, especially in engineering and the sciences, women account for a smaller share of graduate engineering degrees than they do for undergraduate and an even smaller percentage account for tenured and tenure-track professors.
At UT's College of Engineering this fall, women make up 19 percent of the doctoral degrees and 10 percent of the tenured and tenure-track faculty. And nationally, 50.6 percent of bachelor's degrees in science and engineering went to women in 2001, but only 37 percent of doctoral degrees, according to the National Science Foundation. Of science and engineering tenured and tenure-track professors, only 21 percent are women. (This includes all scientific fields, ranging from psychology and social sciences to mathematics and engineering.)
But in non-science fields, 36 percent of tenure or tenured-track professors are women, according to the NSF.
One reason may be that there are less demands on time in industry than in academia, according to the NSF's Web site.
After graduate school, many women have to balance career with family, and academia is not the easiest place to do that. With an industry position, the amount of time that spent on the job is often set from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., said Loo, who's experienced academia and industry. A starting professor intent on tenure must spend more than that, juggling classes, writing proposals and managing the fledgling research group, she said.
"It is hard to balance career with family," Loo said. "You are at the point where you are thinking about having a family and children. And it is difficult to do both. I shouldn't say that. It is difficult to do both well."
Thrills of research
But Loo has managed to do it well so far.
"I'm very linked emotionally, psychologically and physically to the research," she said, admitting she got goosebumps when her group got its first bits of data from the organic transistors in her lab.
Her research is somewhat revolutionary in the field, she said, because the processes used to make silicon transistors can't be applied to the organic electronic devices. To get patterned wires on silicon, for example, a thin coat of metal must be deposited over the silicon. This layer is then selectively removed using acid to form wires. But polymers can't withstand the exposure to the acid and the high temperatures needed for this process, so new ways of forming wires were needed, which is what Loo has developed.
Before coming to the University, Loo started her nanotransfer printing, or nTP, at Bell Labs in New Jersey. This process puts a patterned layer of polymer or metal on to another surface, putting less wear on the surfaces because you are only putting down material where you want it to go, instead of putting down an indiscriminate amount, etching it away with acid into the desired pattern, Loo said.
In nTP, a pattern is engraved into a stamp made from a very smooth polymer called poly(dimethylsiloxane) or PDMS, said Kimberly Felmet, a graduate student in Loo's group. A metal film is evaporated onto the PDMS and pressed down onto the area to receive the pattern. When the stamp is removed, the metal layer is transferred.
This process is similar to inking a rubber stamp and pressing it on a piece of paper - but instead of a picture of a bunny, you are making lines that are 100 nanometers, or 0.0001 millimeters wide.
By changing the surface chemistry of the printed area, polymers and different metals can be deposited.
Another of Loo's graduate students is working on a process to place a polymer on a surface that is chemically altered so it sticks in some areas, forming a pattern.
With these techniques in development, devices using organic electronics aren't too far away.
But they'll never compete with conventional semiconductor devices in the high-speed processor or memory market because they operate slower, Loo said. Instead, organic materials are suited for niche markets, like displays.
"The examples that I like to tell people about are electronic wallpaper," Loo said. "It sounds cheap and trivial, but with the click of a switch, you can change the color from red to green or from solid to stripes."
It is also a perfect example of organic electronics' advantages: low cost, large-area coverage and flexibility.
Another application is an electronic map that a hiker can buy at a store and is light enough to carry while hiking. The map can be hooked up to a Global Positioning System so there is a frame of reference - very useful if the hiker is lost. Because it's made from polymers, the map would also be lighter.
Items like these will probably be hitting the stores in five to 10 years, Loo said.
Agonies of balancing it
It's the thrill of the possibilities of real-time maps and folding televisions that keeps Loo excited.
And it makes the sacrifices she's made easier to accept.
During her first two years at the University, her husband Phillip was still working in New York. It was right after the dot-com bust, she said, and it was unclear if and when Phillip would find a job in Austin.
At the same time, Loo was starting her tenure process, one which is difficult and stressful and lasts about five years. Assistant professors have to prove they are capable of teaching and performing research. During this period, they also set up their lab, purchase initial equipment, and learn how to teach, write grant proposals and manage graduate students.
Basically, there's very little time for anything else.
Having a family in this time is tough, agreed Christine Schmidt, an associate professor in biomedical engineering.
Schmidt, who has a 15-month-old child, said it's "definitely manageable, but more difficult."
That may be the reason more women don't go into academia, Loo said, because juggling the two is complicated.
But both women said it is possible to be a successful professor and have a family.
"I think the key thing is that you learn to manage and organize your time better when you have a child because you want to go home at a reasonable time," Schmidt said.
More women faculty are having children before tenure and making it work, she said.
As for Loo, she can't picture it being any other way.
"Drive is important, but what is more important is that you need to love what you do," she said. "You wake up each morning, and you ask yourself, 'Am I still happy with what I'm doing?' It is what you find satisfaction from."
DID YOU KNOW?
At UT's College of Engineering this fall, women make up 19 percent of the doctoral degrees and 10 percent of the tenured and tenure-track faculty.
Nationally, 50.6 percent of bachelor's degrees in science and engineering went to women in 2001.
In that same year, only 37 percent of doctoral degrees went to women.
Of science and engineering tenured and tenure-track professors, only 21 percent are women. (This study included all scientific fields, from psychology and social sciences to mathematics and engineering.)
Also in 2001, 36 percent of tenured or tenure-track professors are women in non-science and engineering fields.
Source: Compiled from UT's College of Engineering and the National Science Foundation's Web site.
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