NETSL: Nanoscale Electro-Thermal Sciences Lab

The staff of NESTL is highly capable, combining over 40 years of experience in computational and experimental heat transfer, microelectronics, lasers, and opto-mechanics. Since its creation in 1995, the Nanoscale Electro-Thermal Sciences Laboratory (NETSL) has drawn on the expertise of the local microelectronics and telecom industry (e.g., TI, Raytheon, TriQuint).

Peter E. Raad received the BSME (with Honors), MS in mechanical engineering, and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. In 1986, he joined the Mechanical Engineering department at SMU. He currently holds the rank of Professor and is the Linda Wertheimer Hart Director of the Linda and Mitch Hart eCenter at SMU. Prior to becoming the founding director of the eCenter, Prof. Raad served as the Associate Dean for the SMU School of Engineering. He has taught courses in the thermal and fluid sciences, and his research in these areas combines computational and experimental investigations. Between 1990 through 1993, he held the J. Lindsay Embrey Trustee Professorship in Engineering, an endowed chair for an outstanding junior faculty member. He has received several awards, including four times the Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award, twice the Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty Award, and the Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award. In 1999-2000, he was named the ASME North Texas Section Engineer of the Year. Prof. Raad has published over 35 journal articles and over 100 symposium and conference papers. He has received over $2M in funding and support from, among others, NSF, TI, Raytheon, TriQuint Semiconductor, Chrysler Technologies, Isonics, and Marlow Industries. Prof. Raad has served as an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering as well as a frequent reviewer for NSF, ASME Transactions, IEEE Transactions, Journal of Computational Physics, and Physics of Fluids. He is a member of ASME, IEEE, APS, and Sigma Xi. In 1979, he was elected a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.

Pavel L. Komarov received B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Moscow Power Engineering University, and Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences. After graduating from Moscow Power Engineering University in 1982, Dr. Komarov joined the Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he worked as a researcher in the Heat and Mass Transfer Laboratory until 1997. During that time, Dr. Komarov extensively applied Laser Doppler (LDA) and Hot Wire (HWA) Anemometers for the heat transfer investigations of the separated turbulent flows in the channels. In 1991, Dr. Komarov had achieved the grade of System Programmer after passing through the courses in the Training Center at the Soviet-American Joint Venture "Dialogue", allowing him to work as a software designer at Laser Measurement System Company (Moscow). In 1997, Dr. Komarov joined the NETSL as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. During the next three years, under his participation and direct control, the experimental setup for both thermal properties measurement of thin-films and temperature measurement of active features of microelectronics was established, successfully developed, and utilized in collaboration with experts from local electronics industry. Since fall 1999, Dr. Komarov occupies Staff Scientist faculty position in the NETSL. He directs the graduate research assistants and is responsible for maintaining research activity in NETSL, further developing laser-based measurement techniques and fruitful collaboration with the interested companies of microelectronic industry. By this time, he has published 12 journal articles and 13 conference papers.

Mihai G. Burzo received in 1995 the Engineer Diploma (with Honors) from Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He worked as a Research Engineer for the Institute of Research and Design in Food and Refrigeration Industry, Romania. In 2001 he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He has received several awards, including the Outstanding Graduate Student Award (2001) from the North Texas Section of ASME, a Leadership Award from Southern Methodist University (2002), a scholarship award from the ME department of SMU (1997-1998), a Mercedes Benz scholarship (1995) and Valedictorian Award (1995). His research interests have covered areas of heat transfer as diverse as mixed convection, refrigeration techniques and cooling of electronics. His current research, in the Submicron Electro-Thermal Sciences Laboratory at SMU, focuses on the laser-based thermal properties measurements of thin film materials. He has published more than 15 articles, conference papers and reports in the professional literature. He is a member of various professional societies including ASME, APS, SAE and IEEE at SMU.

Gunhan Kaytaz is currently working as a Reasearch Assistant in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. In 1994 he received the B.Sc. (with Honors) and in 1996 the M.Sc. from Instanbul Technical University, Turkey. Mr. Kaytaz has a strong background in heat transfer and microelectronics. He has published several articles, conference papers and reports in the scientific literature. He is scheduled to graduate with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from SMU in December 2003.