Lars Sobieski, undergraduate mechanical engineer at the Earth and Space Institute, spends his day developing hardware and testing for future climate satellites. At ESI, he designs and fabricates some of the ground support equipment (GSE) that will help calibrate future climate instruments, particularly the two-dimensional focal plane arrays (FPA). The FPA is the surface of a detector that collects light across millions of pixels and converts it into an image. ESI is developing FPAs for upcoming satellite instruments that are sensitive to ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), and shortwave infrared (SWIR) wavelengths. These are critical spectral ranges for studying Earth’s clouds, aerosols, land, ocean, and atmosphere.

A major type of testing that satellites and their detectors undergo before launch is thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing. In the lab, Mr. Sobieski and ESI faculty are preparing an industrial TVAC chamber, which can submit our space hardware to orbit temperatures (-20C to +20C) and space-like pressures (10-7 millibars and lower). This TVAC chamber was part of a major state grant to ESI, led by Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, to boost UMBC’s capacity to support new space and satellite projects.

Mr. Sobieski is currently helping to optimize the TVAC chamber for related testing. However, he explains, “Because the TVAC chamber will not be ready for use for some of the FPA tests, I was given the task of designing and building an enclosure that can fit the GSE needed for the UV/VIS FPA test. This enclosure will be purged with dry air to ensure that no condensation will form on the electronics as they are chilled to below the dewpoint. It must also isolate the FPA from electrostatic discharge and provide through-wall access points for power, data, pneumatics, and a liquid cooling loop.” This will be used to verify the operation of the FPA prior to testing it under day-night temperature swings or the low pressures of the orbit environment.

Photo: The full assembly of the UV/VIS FPA (center gray part) and associated electronics in a metal enclosure for electronics testing. Photo Credit: L. Sobieski/ESI.

Since March 2025, he took on a completely different project for ESI in parallel – developing a full-scale 3D-printed model of the HARP CubeSat, ESI’s first foray into small satellite technology for studying Earth’s climate. According to Mr. Sobieski, “The process involved using the existing CAD assembly of the CubeSat to create a new, simplified model from scratch to reduce the part count. While the actual CubeSat had a few thousand parts, the 3D-printable model has only nineteen.” After a few rounds of test prints, gluing, body-filling, sanding, and priming, Mr. Sobieski enlisted the help of his fiancée to do the detail brush painting. For the end result, the 3D model of the HARP CubeSat looks remarkably similar to what actually flew in space from 2020-2022.

Photos: Process composite of the development of the HARP CubeSat 3D model. The monobloc model derived from the original satellite CAD file (left), components were primed (center left), painted to match the satellite (center right), and the final model (right). Photo Credit: L. Sobieski/ESI.

Greetings!

NOTE: Our original post had the correct dates listed but the incorrect day of the week (listing Tuesday when it should have been Wednesday). The correct days and dates are Wednesday 9/10 and Wednesday 10/1.

We are pleased to announce the official relaunch of our shared services center! To mark this occasion, we will be hosting an in-person event where participants will:

• Attend a one-hour presentation on our updated services and structure

• Meet the team supporting your department

• Take part in a Q&A session, followed by an opportunity to meet the team in person and enjoy coffee, tea, and light refreshments

To ensure this event works for as many attendees as possible, we would appreciate your input on:

• Your preferred start time: 9:00 AM or 10:00 AM

• Your preferred date: Wednesday, September 10th or Wednesday, October 1st.

Please complete the form no later than Friday, August 1st. Your feedback will help us finalize the event details and ensure a meaningful and productive relaunch gathering.

Link to Google Form: https://forms.gle/PrrTw8xPaWszt5439

Thank you!

AAOU SSC Team

Arts Administration Opportunity:
Howard County Arts Council
Position: Visitor and Facility Services Assistant

The Howard County Arts Council (HoCo Arts), a multi-purpose non-profit arts agency, seeks a self-directed, outgoing individual for enty-level position in a small, fast-paced office environment. The Visitor and Facility Services Assistant is responsible for administering and coordinating space rentals, hospitality and facility services. This position reports to the Visitor and Facility Services Manager.

Finding new materials with useful properties is a primary goal for materials scientists, and it’s central to improving technology. One exciting area of current research is 2D materials—super-thin substances made of just a few layers of atoms, which could power the next generation of electronic devices. UMBC researchers have developed a new way to predict 2D materials that might transform electronics, and the results were published in Chemistry of Materials earlier in July.

Picture a sheet of paper so thin that it’s only a few atoms thick, and that’s what 2D materials are like. One might think they would be fragile—but these materials can actually be incredibly strong or conduct electricity in unique ways. They’re held together by weak forces called van der Waals bonds, which allow materials to slightly deform without breaking under stress. Stacked layers of these 2D materials can slide past each other, further reducing brittleness. 

The research team, led by Peng Yan, Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, and Joseph Bennett, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, focused on a type of 2D material called van der Waals layered phosphochalcogenides. Some of these materials are ferroelectric, meaning they can hold an electric charge in a particular direction, and then the direction can be reversed on command—sort of like tiny, reversible batteries. Some ferroelectric materials are also magnetic, behaving similarly when a magnetic field is applied. That combination makes them ideal for advanced electronics like memory devices and sensors.

“There’s only two known 2D van der Waals ferroelectric materials with this type of structure,” Bennett said, “so we were asking ourselves, where might others be hiding?” The new publication is their answer to that question.

A treasure map to new 2D materials

The researchers used a mix of data mining, computer modeling, and structural analysis (because only materials with certain shapes are conducive to use in electronics) to ferret out new material candidates. 

“We developed a set of chemical design rules to predict these materials, which could significantly accelerate the discovery of new functional materials,” Yan, the study’s first author, said.

Joshua Birenzvige ’23, chemistry, played a key role by developing a Python script that helped sort the potential materials based on their properties, speeding up the team’s progress. Mona Layegh, a Ph.D. candidate in Bennett’s group, is also a co-author on the new paper.

The researchers began by digging into the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database, a huge collection of known crystal structures. Then they used quantum structural diagrams—which map materials on a chart according to how they relate to each other, determined by their atomic traits—to find areas within the diagrams where promising new materials might be hiding.

“By analyzing basic parameters like differences in electronegativity and radius, we were able to separate materials that have the properties we want from those that don’t,” Bennett explained. Electronegativity measures how strongly an atom attracts electrons, and an atom’s radius is the distance from its center to the outer edge of its electron cloud.

“These quantum structural diagrams act like a treasure map,” Bennett said, “guiding us to regions of chemical space where new, stable 2D materials are likely to exist.”

Their results indicated 83 potential new materials that could be made and used in the tech industry, potentially increasing the number of known ferroelectric materials by an incredible margin. 

From the computer to the lab bench

After the computer-based analysis, the team took their work a step further. The UMBC researchers collaborated with Ryan Stadel, Peter Zavalij, and Efrain Rodriguez at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), who made and tested some of the predicted materials in the lab. Their work proved the UMBC predictions could be used to guide experiments with the predicted materials.

“Being able to predict which compositions are likely to form stable, functional materials gives us a huge head start in the lab,” Bennett said. “It’s like having a recipe book for materials that haven’t been made yet, which saves time and resources.”

These new materials could shine in real-world uses, substantially advancing the electronics industry. For example, they could help build memory devices that can store data after power is shut off, tiny sensors that detect minute amounts of particular substances, or low-power components that make your phone battery last longer. These properties are in high demand across the tech industry and the U.S. government—this work was funded by a substantial grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

An exciting future of discovery

“I’m excited because the work demonstrates a successful data-guided approach to discovering novel 2D materials with promising functional properties, potentially accelerating the design of next-generation electronic materials,” Yan said.

Next up, the team will use a complex computer simulation, called high-throughput density functional theory modeling, to explore these 83 materials in more depth. They’ll check their ferroic traits and how easily they can be made. Plus, they’ll continue their collaboration with the UMD to synthesize and study the materials in the lab, aiming to confirm their special properties and tweak them for specific applications.

The research is a major step forward, paving the way for materials that could change how engineers build electronics—from sensors for the military to longer-lasting laptops and tablets for students on the go.