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Benny Chan: [0:01] Hello I'm Benny Chan. I'm an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department at the College of New Jersey.

[0:24] A lot of times solid state chemistry requires very high temperatures to process our materials. I work in the field of trying to lower those temperatures to make it a little more efficient to make the materials. And also at lower temperatures we get a lot of different new structures, and we study the properties that are produced from it.

[0:48] I had Sergio in one of my analytical chemistry classes on my first year at the College of New Jersey. And I encouraged Sergio to apply to the National Science Foundation Solid State Summer Materials Research Program. He's been working with me for two summers now. This summer he is currently on National Starch money that was donated, and worked on some great results.

[1:00] Now we started to dive into another project where we're looking at chalcogenide materials, sulfur-containing compounds, and selenium-containing compounds that also potentially could have frustration.

Sergio Pulido: [1:21] My name is Sergio Pulido, and I'm a chemistry major. Currently I'm working in the field of solid state chemistry, trying to synthesize frustrated systems. This summer by doing my experiments and synthesizing compounds, I actually discovered something new. When we analyzed it by X-ray diffraction none of the patterns matched any of the literature.

Benny: [1:35] This summer we found a new compound which we're hoping to fully characterize this coming fall. So it's an exciting time, and we're hoping that this compound that we made, brand new compound, is a frustrated magnet. And that's very exciting in our field.

[1:54] With the frustrated magnets, the properties are closely related to superconducting materials. A lot of superconducting materials also have frustration in them. So by understanding frustration, we're hoping that we can learn a little bit more about these properties, and hopefully design new materials.

[2:15] We started working on a project up at Princeton and got some great results working on the zinc chromate system. And now we started to dive into another project where we're looking at chalcogenide materials, sulfur-containing compounds, and selenium-containing compounds, that also potentially could have frustration. We're trying to make materials using what we call a 'building block' approach.

[2:34] And in this project, we start with pre-formed building blocks of compounds of phosphorous selenide in a tetrahedral shape. And we try to make them into more complicated compounds. These compounds are already known. However, the synthetic methods that we're trying aren't quite known.

[2:49] My other student, Sarah Wehrhan, she was in my freshman general chemistry class this past fall. I was trying to find a very young student to do research with, to engage them in all four years of their career at the College of New Jersey.

Sarah Wehrhan: [3:09] Hi, my name is Sarah Wehrhan. I'm a chemistry major. I'm a rising sophomore. I am doing a building block project which I am trying to make a new compound from a ternary compound to a quaternary, which is from three to four elements. Being a part of the MUSE program is really great because I get to work with other people in different areas.

Benny: When I was in undergrad, I also worked on a summer undergraduate research project that was very similar to MUSE. So when I was searching for a school, I was hoping to find another school that had an exciting summer undergraduate project.

[3:34] This is a great program for students to get engaged with their faculty members, and I think you learn a lot more by doing undergraduate research than by being in a classroom because you're learning by doing, and you're learning the material as you're going along.