In the morning, I attended a lecture on magnetic field assembly of Janus and patchy particles which, despite its odd name, proved to be very interesting. The speaker essentially summarized her research on partially-coated particles produced via the method of deposition, although the intriguing part was how these particles reacted when introduced to a magnetic field versus an electric field. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the lecture I understood even though it was aimed at graduate students; I had sufficient background for everything except the monstrously frightening physics portion.
Afterwards, I returned to normal lab life by going through the arduous process of preparing new prime layers on silicon wafers. Of all the chemicals and tools I worked with, of course I ended up injuring myself on tinfoil, an innocent household item. It wasn't a particularly serious wound, just a cut I sustained on my arm, but I now know to exercise caution around dangerous items like foil that are used for wrapping sandwiches, drying silicon wafers, and other such typical purposes.
Once I had recovered from this traumatic experience, I set to work adjusting the pH of approximately ten million solutions. This is necessary but mind-numbing work, and I was greatly relieved when the long, painful process was over and I could actually use those solutions to assist in contact angle measurements.
Up until this point, I hadn't used the ellipsometer, something quite rare for me on Wednesdays, but the reprieve did not last long, for at this point, the ellipsometer and I met again. The wafers I synthesized prime layers on earlier were ready to be taken from the oven and measured. Luckily, the ellipsometer was friendly and cooperative, and the computer didn't even crash on me when I was updating the Excel sheet with my new data.
No comments:
Post a Comment