Christopher Smyth Email & Phone Number

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

Webster, Tx

Enabling long term water disinfection in manned extraterrestrial habitats through surface engineering, chemical engineering, and nanotechnology.

Webster, Tx

-Materials and Processes selection, testing, and validation for custom hardware and COTS items flown for IVA and EVA environments on the International Space Station and commercial crew vehicles (Orion, Crew Dragon, CST-100)-Proposal writing for prospective contracts: wrote technical approach for Leidos' winning proposal to build navigation targets for the Gateway Power and Propulsion Element-market surveys for new technology: helium removal from habitable spacecraft, high accuracy flow meters in micro gravity-Failure analysis (metallic, polymeric, and composite materials systems)

Richardson, Tx

Current research focuses on investigating the effects of process parameters on the chemistry, band alignment, and transport properties at the interface formed between a variety of contact material–transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) pairs. X-ray and Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy/Spectroscopy are employed both in-situ and ex-situ to investigate the evolution of chemical states and band alignment prior to and following metallization and post metallization treatments as well as the topography and local density of states, respectively. This work highlights the contact–TMD interface is not pristine or abrupt in many cases as many in the community have assumed and the interface chemistry contributes substantially to the resulting contact performance in these systems. In addition, variable temperature (I–V–T) and frequency (C–V–T) measurements have been employed to investigate the dominant carrier transport mechanism(s) and correlate interface and contact chemistry with electrical behavior. The ultimate goal of this research is to connect processing conditions with contact performance through detailed characterization. This work helps optimize TMD–based devices, pushing the technology towards commercial viability.

Senior design group project in which we designed and fabricated an environmental stress cracking testing widget for high strength thermoset polymers. I calculated the geometry of the widget to yield applied percent strain accuracy to two decimal places and modeled the widget in solid works. The group was successful in fabricating the widget and demonstrating its performance.

Worked towards improving the quantum efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells by engineering the metal oxide hole transport layer to optimize band offsets and increase exciton lifetime.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Materials Science

Surface chemistry of semiconducting materials and study of the various interfaces formed in electronic devices on the nanoscale. Analysis.

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Materials Engineering