At the time I was doing some R&D work involving specialized high speed probe interfaces used in the semiconductor testing industry that used a variety of interesting materials like polyimide membrane circuit boards with contacts made of alloys like copper beryllium and some other materials used in the force delivery mechanisms in the interfaces. The class was very usefully in helping me understand the materials that I was working with.
In the application the probes were contacting aluminum contact pads with sufficient enough force to break through an aluminum oxide layer on the surface of the pad so that the probes would achieve adequate electrical contact resistance between probe and pad. I developed automated life cycle testing techniques that allowed Kelvin contact resistance measurement to be made over time.
Over time the probe tips would accumulate aluminium + aluminum oxide residue that would degrade the contact resistance. So I had to develop cleaning techniques to remove the contaminants using an online automated abrasive cleaning process and some offline chemical cleaning processes.
The class gave me a better understanding of the properties of the materials I was using and why they were being used. It covered metals, alloys, eutectic alloys, polymers etc.
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