Academic Awards 2024 booklet

11 General comments The TU/e community can take pride in the fantastic work being done by our BSc students. The jury was greatly impressed by the ambition level of the projects that were carried out by all nominated candidates, reflecting the rich variety of exciting impactful projects in our BSc programs, as well as direct coupling to and impact on important and timely challenges faced in society and industry. The quality of the nominated theses varied from “very good” to “excellent”. The excellent reports not only presented a clear view on the work that has been done, but also demonstrated solid grounding in the relevant scientific disciplines and the current state of the art. In addition, these reports demonstrated how the candidates have actively and critically analysed and assessed their results in the light of the user requirements and project objectives and adapted dynamically the project if necessary. In all cases, the work was very well received by the respective scientific communities, clients or stake holders. Naming of the winner of the award The jury has unanimously selected the winner for the BSc Thesis Award 2024 to be WIKTOR KWAPIŃSKI from Applied Physics Department for the thesis “Improving heat dissipation in hex-SiGe nanowires using 2D hBN flakes”. The jury was impressed by the scientific quality and rigor of Wiktor’s work, in which he proposed to investigate a novel combination of quasi-1D and 2D materials, which was never done before to optimize the heat management for lasing applications. Throughout the project, Wiktor worked in a very structured manner, showed great independence and understanding of a broad range of physics topics and used a number of very involved sample fabrication and measurement techniques at two locations; Barcelona and Eindhoven. He has also developed physical insights to support the observed phenomena that confirmed the promising potential of the proposed approach and the key finding was that is has opened a plethora of new pathways for future research. In addition to outstanding research, Wiktor is also actively engaged in a number of extracurricular activities, e.g. student team SOLID, study association “van der Waals” and sports teams. Laudatio For his BSc final project, Wiktor Kwapinski was looking for a challenging project, which he found in the idea to use layered 2D materials to improve the heat dissipation in SiGe nanowires. If successful, this will have the potential to revolutionize the semiconductor industry by opening the pathways to new, currently nonexistent technologies. Wiktor succeeded in all aspects of this highly original and challenging project: He first developed a new fabrication technique and fabricated the samples at Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) in Barcelona. Then he used a broad range of experimental measurement techniques to characterize the samples and performed proper statistical analysis of the results. Finally, he developed physical insights to support the observed phenomena that confirmed the promising potential of the proposed approach. The novelty, originality and future potential of this work are also reflected by the fact that a research proposal is currently being prepared to further develop Wiktor’s idea. Throughout the project, Wiktor worked in a very structured manner, showed great independence and understanding of a broad range of physics topics. The jury was impressed by the high quality, original, scientific research performed by Wiktor and the well written report. The supervisors mentioned that it was a joy for everyone to work with Wiktor. In addition to outstanding research, Wiktor is also actively engaged in a number of extracurricular activities, e.g. student team SOLID, study association “van der Waals” and sports teams. The jury warmly congratulates Wiktor with the award. This is a remarkable achievement! REPORT OF THE JURY