Sunday, June 19, 2022
By:
This week I was working in the lab collecting data. Last week I mentioned the new Hyper Spectral microscope, which is what I used for my data collection. Essentially, we have a collection of small tetracene crystals on a clear substrate and want to figure out a method for figuring out the orientation of the crystal on the substrate. To do this, we polarize the incoming light and see how much light is transmitted at different polarization angles. The important part is we do this for each wavelength between 400 and 800 nm in 1 nm intervals to get a spectra, and we do this for each polarization angle. From this we should be able to compare the results to a simulation of what should happen, and extract orientation and thickness. I took lots of data during the beginning of the week and began the process of writing some code to extract the necessary data to compare to simulations made by my mentor, Jared Wahlstrand. The three NIST interns (Taylor, Div, and I) also went to a happy hour with my group, the Nanoscale Spectroscopy Group, where we got to meet other scientists in my group working on different projects. It was a lot of fun hearing about their experiences at NIST over time.
Outside of work, this was an important week for me because I picked out my apartment for the coming year. Starting in August I will be moving to Rochester, NY to begin my journey as a PhD student in Optics at the University of Rochester. A lot needs to be figured out before then, but the apartment process is complete. It came with lots of ups and downs, but the other interns were very supportive! I’ve also begun a long list of paperwork that needs to be completed before then, but at least it’s all been started now.
Over the weekend, a group of us went out to a place called Decades and had a lot of fun dancing, and we also went to the planned orchestra concert. I had a really good time listening to the music and running outside before the concert. My favorite song was the Funeral March, and it was fun that Justin brought a Polaroid camera to take pictures with. This morning I went to the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market and got most of my groceries for the week as well. It was a lot of fun walking around the market with other interns. Overall, I’m excited to see what all I can get done in the following week!
Valeria Viteri-Pflucker