Research ROCKS !!!

I know this sounds pretty nerdy, but if you got to wear a lab suit, shoe covers, gloves, safety glasses and a hair net, you'd think it was pretty cool! I got to go into the cleanroom lab the other day and work with my professor.

(this is a clean room--you have to suit up before you enter and then you go through other doors. normally there's a high power fan that blows air on you to make sure you don't come into the lab with anything on you! the one i went into wasn't this fancy but it still looked cool!)

I'm doing research with a physics professor and so far it's awesome. It counts as a senior level physics class, I don't have any tests, and I get to do cool things and put it on my resume! How much better can it get?

We went into the fabrication lab and I got to use a PVD (physical vapor deposition) machine.

(this isn't the exact machine, but it looks kind of like this!)

We put some SiO2 wafers (what they use in semiconductors--don't know what that means) in the machine and then some high quality aluminum on a tungsten coil. We took out the air (made it like a vacuum) and then melted the aluminum. After it evaporated, we had to pump air back into the instrument (so we could open the door), and then removed the wafers. They were all shiny (looked like a mirror) since the aluminum evaporated onto them.

(an aluminum wafer--looked like this but didn't have the neat pattern on it!)

Pretty interesting stuff. Hopefully next week we'll go into the photolithography room and be able to put a picture on the wafer or some sort of design!

Back from my blogging hiatus

I finally caught up tonight on my blog! Yeah! Hope there's something enjoyable for you to see or read! Things were great over the holidays, but back to my busy life. I started school again. It was good to get back into it. I had about 6 weeks off, so I had time to recover and do some projects! Anyways, I'm taking some hard classes, so I may be asking for some help. I'm taking Modern Physics, Engineering Mechanics, and a Fourier Series Class. It's pretty interesting how my math has helped me in my physics classes thus far. Now it's opposite. My physics is helping me in my math classes now!! How crazy is that? So now you know I'm a total nerd! At least I enjoy it. You may not hear that from me by the end of the semester!

LESSON OF THE DAY!

Another great lesson was learned today, thanks to good old Physics class. I only share these wonderful tidbits of information because they are so interesting (yes, I'm a totally physics nerd). Say there are 2 speakers placed some distance apart. You are standing between them, but about 20 feet away. This forms a triangle, but it's not an equilateral triangle (distance b/2 each speaker to you is a different length). Well, these speakers interfere with each other and cause the sound to reach you (meaning each of your ears) at different times. If you were standing at the right position, you would have a constructive interference. If you were standing at another position, you would have a destructive interference and ultimately not be able to hear the speakers--they would cancel each other out!!! Wow, what a cool concept. Now all this depends on the wave length and the phase angle. Now, go share your plethera of information! Stay tuned for next time....I'll tell you how you can shatter a glass!