Researcher Highlight: Aaron Hunsaker
Aaron Hunsaker, a 5th year Ph.D. student in Professor Haglund’s Applied Optical Physics group.
I came to Vanderbilt through the Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program, where I received my master’s degree in physics before transitioning to the physics Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt. My master’s research involved fabricating and characterizing a ceramic scintillator of cesium hafnium chloride. That work ultimately culminated in a first author paper in the Journal of Crystal Research and Technology.
After arriving in Prof. Haglund’s group my research interest remained with scintillator design and characterization. My current work focuses on improving the spatial resolution of time-of-flight positron emission scanners (TOF-PET) using a zinc oxide nanowire based composite scintillator. The spatial resolution of TOF-PET scanners is limited by the decay time of the scintillator used in the radiation detectors. The decay time of ZnO is tens of picoseconds, a few orders of magnitude faster than the standard scintillators used in current TOF-PET scanners. This makes it an excellent material to improve the special resolution of these scanners. Improving the sensitivity of TOF-PET scanners would both have a drastic impact on early detection of diseases and significantly lower the scan time and cost of the procedure.
The VINSE facilities are essential to the advancement of my research project. From electron beam lithography, to chemical vapor deposition, to imaging with the scanning electron microscope, our research group spends countless hours utilizing the VINSE facilities. Recently we received funding from the VINSE pilot study program to investigate if milling an array of holes in our substrate with the focused ion beam will allow for patterned growth of our ZnO nanowires. An image of our ZnO nanowires was also selected as a winner of this summer’s VINSE image competition. The VINSE facilities are essential to the science and engineering research at Vanderbilt University and I am proud to be a part of the user community.
Contact: Aaron Hunsaker