Minghao Cheng

I work as a Research Assistant in Prof. Abhay Pasupathy's group. In our group, we use Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) , with which one is able to observe really small and delicate features like atoms, to characterize the properties of novel materials. As a RA, I have operated and maintained 2 different STMs, which includes data collection/analysis as well as trouble-shooting, reparing and system customization. Beside my research in physics, I spent a fair amount of my time on programming and learning of Machine Learning. I believe the power of Machine Learning and other advanced computing techniques will also benefit our research. I shared what I learned on statistical learning with our group by holding a series of seminars and I am currently working on how to combine the power of ML with our experiments in a effective way.

I worked as the preceptor/Lead Teaching Fellow at Department of Physics, Columbia University. Together with another preceptor, we plan and assign the teaching task of undergraduate level Physics to over 30 teaching assistants. We held TA meetings on a weekly/biweekly schedule, on which we would lead the discussion of current teaching enviroment and demonstrate the teaching task for the following weeks. Besides, I also led the revision of the previous Lab Manual for undergraduate physics labs.

I was an undergraduate research assistant in Prof. Yuan Li's research group. With the aim of understanding the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity, we conducted some research on Hg1201 and Hg1212, which are two characteristic high-temperature superconductors. The first section of our research was to synthesize single crystals of these materials, for the most characterization approaches could only be done on single crystals. With a series of high-quality samples, we then conducted some characterization for then, including Raman Spectra, MPMS, XRD. There should be more research on these samples in the future.

PhD in Physics