Sunday, June 21, 2020
By:
This week my mentor and I were able to find a way to get a license for me to download the COMSOL simulation software on my computer. This is a big step forward towards analysing our system of interest and it will be great to get experience using the software. With this software we hope to simulate a measurement using frequency modulated atomic force microscopy in the lab. At this time, this poses some difficulties due to his limited access to the lab and my limited access to computational power. I am going to limit the simulation to a two-dimensional surface, which is non-ideal because the measurement is attempting to image buried metal lines at varying depths. Also, the tip being used to measure the device is three-dimensional meaning we must find a way to generalize the tip-sample interaction in two-dimensions. Currently, I don’t have a good idea of how this will work because I don’t have access to the software yet.
Next week, I hope to learn more about using the COMSOL software so I can begin to conceptualize how we will tackle the issues at hand. Also, I am looking forward to the planned activities that the SPS committee has lined up for us. We have a professional networking workshop planned for Wednesday afternoon and our weekly hangout session which I have to look forward to as well. So far the experience of getting to know the other interns better and understanding how research at a national lab takes place has been enlightening. I know that the best has yet to come and I am excited to see what I will have to report next week.
Billy "Trey" Cole