I can’t believe we have already been here for a full week! Today, we started the day with a visit to Coherent, which is a company that makes engineered ceramics and optics equipment. I was particularly excited for this visit since this is very related to my interest in materials science. I found many of the products that they make to be very cool. A highlight for me was engineered ceramics that have extremely low coefficients of thermal expansion. Materials like these must be designed such that there are thermally dependent internal stresses that are equal and opposite to the stress caused by heat. This allows the forces to essentially cancel out, keeping the exact dimensions stable at variable temperatures. Obviously, this is an intensely specific material that requires a lot of skill to design. These materials can be used in highly precise applications, like chip manufacture. By making sure the substrate stays still as temperature changes, the chips can be manufactured to a much higher precision, which allows for greater computing power and a smaller overall size.

I also noticed a difference in the safety standards present in the work areas. For example, chemicals in use did not have any chemical hazard labels from what I saw, whereas almost all bottles of anything would have a label like that in the US. I am unsure that the chemicals I saw would require such labels, but it was interesting to me given that in many labs in the US all source containers will have clear and standardized labels.

On the business side, I think the thing that stood out to me most was how much the new tariffs will affect their business model. Their biggest buyers are in the US, so their products manufactured in Vietnam will be subject to tariffs in most of their sales. I think that Coherent might be the type of company to start to limit their activity in Vietnam if the tariffs stay because they already have significant manufacturing going on in the US. I would at the very least expect them to move any new expansion plans to the US.

After our company visit, we had a fun afternoon of sports with students from UEF. We played 5v5 indoor soccer. I ended up playing defense, but I honestly didn’t really know what I was supposed to be doing positionally. Since we were playing against their school team and none of us girls from Pitt had really played before, we lost pretty convincingly. However, it was still a great time, and they went easy enough on us that our team managed a few goals.