- My research grant is for
zone-refining germanium.
Germanium is a metalloid
and a semiconductor
at really low temperatures,
so they can use that in
detectors for dark matter
and neutrinoless double-beta decay.
My name is Alex Kirkvold.
I'm a junior physics
and English double major
at the University of South Dakota.
Germanium is a really hot topic
in nuclear particle
physics research currently
because there are so many
neutrinoless double-beta decay searches
and so many dark matter searches.
It's about a question of
whether or not we'll see
neutrinoless double-beta decay,
it's who gets to it first.
That's why we have to do it here at USD.
It's really hard to refine,
it's not super common in the world,
and it's very expensive.
So what we do at USD,
we're trying to make it more accessible
for curiosity-based research.
So I've met a lot of people
in the physics research field
that I don't think I would have
if I hadn't had this opportunity
presented to me by USD.
It's like completely unique.
I don't know if there's
any other institutions
that do detector fabrication
from start to finish,
so it's been really helpful
for me to get out there
and be one of the few students
in the world who can do this,
and so it's just been an
amazing opportunity all around.
(bright music)
