Sunday, July 19, 2020
By:
Short blog post today. The biggest goal right now is acquiring CHCA and DHB for testing in the future, and this is tricky. The company I am ordering from will only ship to laboratories, and my university is having trouble ordering it because of insurance reasons, as I am not technically doing this work for campus purposes. I am very grateful to the people at my university for going above and beyond to help me out, but I may have to go the summer without it.
Besides the lab work, I have been doing some research into the photoelectric effect. This is because the MALDI matrices are used with lasers, and the photons from the beams can cause photoelectrons to travel throughout the target plate, which could then ionize the molecules. Since we are using UV lasers, the light will be strong enough to work function. One of the aspects to consider is how the thickness of the foil affects the photoelectric effect, as thicker foil will have more atoms in the path of the laser beam, and I made an equation based on the mass absorption coefficient of iron that should indicate how many photoelectrons are emitted. I have typed up my results in a Latex document, and am excited to share it with my advisor.
Alex Mikulich