Hal Evensen's soon-to-be-updated Homepage

I am a Professor of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville.

I’m also the Program Coordinator for Microsystems & Nanotechnology.
NOTE that the MSNT pages are new!  Information on the program (until the new University web pages are active).

 

Information for my Fall 2012 classes is now located in D2L.

EP 4010, EP Lab

EP 3640 / 3140, Electric & Magnetic Fields

GE 1000 and 1030, Engineering Success Skills and Intro. to Engineering Projects

 

Also, here are links to my Advising page and my collection of advising pages for students interested in studying abroad at the University of Newcastle (Australia), where I spent my sabbatical in Spring 2008.

 

 

Email address:  evensenh(at)uwplatt.edu

 

I have recently had a Nano Letters paper relating a nanotechnology project I did in collaboration with Prof. Rob Carpick at UW-Madison (now at Penn).  We tried to make regular, sub-micron wrinkles by plasma-treating thin films of silicon rubber.  The top surface becomes silica-like and different from the PDMS below, and wrinkles upon cooling.  Click here to see a picture I took with an atomic force microscope.  I also adapted this work to create a simple experiment that can be done fairly cheaply and easily. 

 

I’ve been very involved with other faculty to bring nanotechnology education to UWP.  Our new Minor in Microsystems and Nanotechnology is in effect – feel free to contact me or other faculty for information!  (Factsheet)

 

Now that my collaborator has left UW, I’m now looking to get into a new area (for me) that involves nanotechnology, plastic solar cells.  I went on a sabbatical to the University of Newcastle in Australia for the Spring 2008 semester, and have had students continuing this work at UW-Platteville.

 

Before arriving at UW-P, I had a post-doc at the Genomation Laboratory at the University of Washington, where we developed automated sub microliter fluid handling in support of the Human Genome Project. The Human Genome Project and the modern study of DNA is becoming a fascinating mix of biology, mathematics, software programming, engineering, and even physics. If biology was like this 18 years ago, who knows, I might have been a biologist.

 

Before that, I pursued fusion research at the University of Wisconsin - though most of my actual work was at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.  Read about the latest on fusion (as of December 2009); a 2009 Science article on inertial confinement fusion ("laser fusion") is here (should be accessible using the campus network).

 

If you think that fusion, the Human Genome Project, and nanotech aren't entirely related, you're sort of right... and wrong. Each project required me to apply different aspects of physics toward solving an engineering problem. This is part of what we mean by "Engineering Physics:" having a solid enough and broad enough physics background in combination with engineering skills so that one can contribute to rapidly changing, interdisciplinary (and sometimes high-tech) fields.

 

OK, that was my plug. This is my (bloated, life-story) CV, if anyone's interested, and you can email me with any questions, comments, etc.

Other Interesting Links:

 

Links related to my most recent informational talk on Graduate Schools, 11/11/09.  Prof. Andy Pawl has taken this over; his Grad Schools info is here.

 

Nanotechnology-related:

Nanotechweb.org, Nanotech articles from the Institute of Physics

National Nanotechnology Initiative, nano-articles gathered by the NNI.

Nanotech Consumer Products.  There are more than you think!

Optics-related:

http://www.optics.org (Institute of Physics; see “technology:news”)

http://www.osa-opn.org (Optics and Photonics News Online)

http://www.oemagazine.com (SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering) Magazine of Photonics Technologies and Applications)

http://www.laserfocusworld.com (Laser Focus World online)

http://www.photonicsspectra.com/ (PhotonicsSpectra online)

http://www.opticsexpress.org (Optics Express, electronic peer-reviewed journal)

Physics-related:

Physics, a free online publication that provides analysis and comment on recent publications in the Physical Review series, and free links to the original papers.  *New* in October 2008!  (American Physical Society)

Physical Review Focus (American Physical Society) Recent research explained for students & researchers in all fields. FREE

Physics News Update (American Institute of Physics) A digest of physics news items (FREE), with a very nice index that lists the titles of the articles. PN Update also gives the reference source (Science magazine, etc.) 

PhysOrg.com has “breaking news” on recent articles in physics, nanotechnology, and other sciences.

Physics Central: http://www.physicscentral.com Links to physics news, people, etc. A good place to start to learn more about a topic.

Physics World (online version of magazine from IOP, the Institute of Physics)

Physics Today (online version of magazine from APS)

What’s New, also on the American Physical Society web site. Latest news, mostly political/social commentary & satire.

Fun Stuff, completely unrelated to anything:

This Modern World, a pretty funny weekly comic strip. Far-left, but still funny.

Zippy the Pinhead - get the daily strip here (archive here)!

The Onion, a weekly "newspaper;" the most consistently funny thing on the web, though it can get a bit vulgar. (You've been warned!)

 

Other physics links:

Except as noted, all are available in Karrmann library.:

Nature (free site subscription required) Has articles and summaries of these articles!

Science Magazine: Physics and Applied Physics article listings

Contemporary Physics:  very good summaries/reviews of current topics

 

Last updated Tuesday, October 11, 2011

H. Evensen, evensenh@uwplatt.edu