Research and Projects


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I love to apply my knowledge and common sense  to get "things" work. I am an experimentalist and love to tinker with laboratory equipment. I also repair my own bike and car.

High Vacuum System at Clemson 513 Rhodes Hall

Ultimate Vacuum -
High Vacuum Pump - Pfeiffer TPH 170 controlled with TPC 310, Turbo Molecular.
Backing Pump - Alcatel, Dual Vane Rotary
Pressure Sensors - Ion Gauge,
Mass Spec -
UV Window -
Viewing Window -
Baking Oven - Yes
Feed Through - 
Mechanical Motion -

Other high Vacuum systems : MBE System, High Vacuum System at 509 Rhodes Hall, High Vacuum System at 22 Riggs Hall.

High Vacuum System Cleaning - Coming up soon!


Turbo Molecular Pump's Controller Repair - We successfully repaired the controller, TCP310, that controls the turbo molecular pump, TPH170. Both these were manufactured by Pfeiffer Balzers. We debugged all the boards and found that the problem was with the controller board. Once we isolated the controller board, we tested it independently using a separate power supply and found that a tantalum filter capacitor on the board was damaged. The capacitor was shorting the supply to ground and thus preventing the controller from starting up. Once the bad component was found, the capacitor was replaced, which allowed the controller to work correctly.

Brief explanation of how to find a short component in a PCB without yanking out all the components! - We identified the faulty (short) component on the PCB by sprinkling a fine powder of Benzophenone all over the problematic circuit board, especially over the components which you expect to fail. You can see the powder melting on the component that is shorting the supply to ground and generating significant amount of heat. Other compounds with similar melting points can also be used if they are safe to handle and easy to clean off. Depending on your specific condition and ambient temperature, other chemicals may prove to be more useful. However, Benzophenone (melting point around 45º Celsius) worked very well for us. While using this method, make sure to set a sensible current limit and maximum voltage depending your specific requirement. Thanks to Dr. Kelvin Poole for coming up with the chemical-sprinkling idea. Electronic technicians at Clemson loved the way we used the low-cost method to find out the problem.


Tantalum Capacitor Research - Funded by KEMET Electronics Corp.

I work at the Micro Electronics Characterization Lab at Clemson University with Dr. William R Harrell.

Research Goals
MS Thesis Investigating pre-breakdown currents in polymer tantalum capacitor
IEEE SoutheastCon 2010 Paper Observation of the Poole-Frenkel Effect in Tantalum Polymer Capacitors


Hydrogeology Research - Funded by National Science Foundation

I work with Dr. Lawrence Murdoch on this project.

Research Goals

Using an old thrown away car stereo as an amplifier

Total cost < $10. Basically, you want to use the amplifier in the car stereo to amplify signals from your computer's audio port. Newer models have a built-in "AUX" plug which is great. Earlier steroes did not have it. Here is how to feed in your signals in to the earlier stereos. Disclaimer: This might not work with all models.

Car stereo was the factory supplied model in a Nissan.
Sharp Speakers with built in woofer and tweeter. Rated power - 50W each.

Here is how to do it (very briefly)