physicsinprogress

[physicsinprogress]

I just got hit with a bomb of academic news today. That my physics major advisor, expected capstone advisor, the department chair, my quantum mechanics professor, my favorite professor of all time, the guy whose general physics class made me want to pursue physics, the person who has encouraged and supported me the most…

… Is not coming back this fall semester.

That news hit me like a fucking bus. I opened that email casually at the end of my work shift today. My stomach dropped. I could feel the blood drain out of my face in shock. I teared up while driving home because that means he won’t see me progress through my capstone. See my capstone presentation. Continue my research. Watch my natural science seminar in the spring. Go to CERN with us. See me graduate. It’s not going to happen.

It was a lot to process. And it’s still surreal since the fall semester is starting Monday.

He’s going to a big university on the other side of the country because his wife got a dean position there. He has to sacrifice his tenure, full professorship, and department chair position so it must be worth it. He cited other reasons why, which are very much understandable. It’s a good move for his family in general. It makes sense.

I’m the first student he told about this. And he was even going to tell me earlier, but I was working on incompletes… So he didn’t want to tell me until the stress was off my plate. I’m thankful for his consideration.

He asked me to come by on Sunday while he’s packing up his office. I’m definitely going.

I gave him the “Relative to what?” shirt earlier this summer. I’m glad I did. But now I need to write him a card or letter or something. I’m not sure if there’s something else I should do, also. But I’m definitely gonna cry. I know it.

I’m gonna ask if I can take a picture with him since he won’t be there at graduation. I’ll wash my “Relative to what?” shirt for it. I don’t think he knows I have one.

Sigh. Two years ago I asked to do research with him and he said that the next two years there would be something going on that he can’t tell me about but would probably prevent him from taking me on as a research student. I wonder if this was it.

Obviously one day I knew I would no longer have him as a professor. Because I’d graduate. But I thought I would have him until I graduated. It’s upsetting. I wanted to make him proud in my senior year. Do good research with him. I’m tearing up.

I can still make him proud.

[physicsinprogress]

80s sampling scope with touch screen CRT. It can see you finger about a cm away from the screen. This scope can take one sample every 10 ps as long as you have a repetitive signal. That's pretty fucking fast.

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Debugging via unlabeled array of lights.

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Another failed jet attempt.

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Sunset in the work parking lot.

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:(

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My incoming daughter's stuffed resistor and capacitor.

[physicsinprogress]

"The IceCube drilling station finally allowed drilling a 2500 m deep hole of 60 cm diameter in less than 48 hours . A 5 MW power station was used to produce 880 l/min of hot (90°C) water at a pressure of 135 bar. With this hot-water-drill, 30 trained people were able to drill a maximum of 20 holes per season and to finish the deployment of 86 strings in seven years."

FYI IceCube is a neutrino detection experiment at the south pole. Basically they put cameras on strings in the ice, then wait for neutrinos to cause a flash.  Neutrinos don't interact very often, so your detector needs to be really big, and fairly clear, so that when they do interact you can see the flash.  Some people use giant swimming pools, others use ice they found lying around at the south pole. I'm reading a paper about how to drill holes faster, so they can put even more cameras in the ice.

[physicsinprogress]

[physicsinprogress]

Marie Curie is most notable for her groundbreaking work in radioactivity. Her discovery of the radioactive element, Radium, eventually led to the modern techniques we use today in radiation therapy for cancer treatments, and her research continues to pave way for future medical applications.   Since the dangers of radiation weren’t known at her time, she continued her lifelong research up until her death from radiation poisoning in 1934. Today, Dr. Curie’s notes are still considered too radioactive to handle.

[physicsinprogress]

Found this during "lab clean up". I almost threw it away, but I realized this is part of my science heritage from before I started working here. Let me see if I can explain what you're looking at. Start at the bottom and look at the reflective squares. Those are silicon chips made in the clean room with a few layers of patterned aluminum to create a tunnel junction refrigerator (basically what I did my phd work on). The refrigerator only works when the aluminum is superconducting, so it need to be at sub-Kelivin temperature, so this whole thing will be bolted into a cryostat. Now look at the first grey horizontal part, and look for the sets of 6 copper colored leads. This is to make electrical connection to the refrigerators with wire bonds. For these devices we typically measure IV curves, which just means you set the current, measure the voltage, and repeat. Next up is another horizontal grey piece. You can see a row of gold colored holes on both grey pieces. I think this was used to route and reroute electrical signals by putting a wire one upper circle and one lower circle. Next up is a bent brown sheet. This is a thin insulator with copper on the back, and copper traces on the front. I think it was for heat sinking. You know how even if your house is 80 degrees, water from outside can still be cold? This is the same idea, even though the whole platform is at .1 Kelvin, the electrons coming down the wires can still be way hotter, this is an attempt to cool them down before they get to the sensitive device being measured. Finally the thing in the top right is a connector. It just connects to a bundle of wires in the cryostat that are accessible at room temperature. Our sample boxes look way nicer these days, they're easier to use. But basically they have the same goal as this.

[physicsinprogress]

To all the young girls out there who goes ”math class is hard’:

Yes, math class is hard, but math class is also exciting as fuck, and math class gives you the sickest rush when you understand something new and and math describes the world in ways you never thought was possible.

Math class can be...

[physicsinprogress]

We just tried doing an xray emission measurement for the first time. On the right is an xray optic that focuses X-rays onto a sample in the middle. In this case the sample is a piece of iron foil. On the left is our xray camera. It's sort of subtle but the camera is not directly in line with the xray optic. So we won't catch any X-rays that just go through the sample. Instead when the sample absorbs an xray it is very likely to quickly emit another xray in a random direction. We're looking for those emitted X-rays. It's important to be as close to the same as possible to catch as many of the emitted X-rays as possible.

[physicsinprogress]

Person who recently got phd: when I started graduate school I felt like I understood physics. I feel like the only thing I learned is that I don't understand physics.

[physicsinprogress]

Small tube + grinding stone. I ended up using pliers to hold the part, since this picture looks like a recipe for injury. I needed a 1cm or shorter piece of small steel tube. I didn't have the right tool to cut it so I used wire cutters, but they crimp the end closed. So then I ground off the crimped part.