All week I explore the building and the contents of the lab where I'm working. This is necessary because, just like at school, one has to scrounge around for cables, connectors, function generators, hand tools, and anything else needed to put together whatever one might be working on, so it helps to have a vague idea where to find things. Unlike at school, where the resources are contained in a two-room lab, all these resources are distributed throughout a huge building. Moreover, the lab where I am working this summer has collected the usual detritus one would expect to find in a room that doubles as storage because it is relatively unused, as well as an assortment of interesting equipment. I find the 42-inch plasma display very interesting. I hooked it up to the computer that I'm using, but the video card therein doesn't do justice to the display. It's not for me anyhow (Duh), it's for a scanning-tunneling microscope which is to be used in association with the nanotube generating apparatus over by the window.
I have been wondering about the gas cylinders and the nanotube thing. A big metal box with glass tubes sticking out both ends and danger signs all over, it is not obviously related to the other research being done at this end of the hall and I assumed it was in this room for storage purposes. I was wrong! A professor who's on the faculty version of my internship program is going to be making up nanotubes this summer. He did his first run on Thursday.
One of the technicians (technician: person who knows how to do everything) across the hall helps him set it up. They have a little trouble removing the cap from the end of the glass tube through which the "sample" (material in which he is trying to grow nanotubes) is to be inserted. (I'm sure there are proper technical terms for all these pieces-parts, but I don't know them yet.)
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this," says the professor, who looks nervously amused when he realizes what he's said.
Hee! That's what I've been telling myself all through engineering school, and it's never struck me as odd till I started working on this project. Because, uh…
They eventually get it set up and then turn it on. The machine has to warm up to 1000 °C and stay there for a few hours. Because the window air conditioner is in a position such that it blows cold air onto the glass tubing, they shut off the air conditioner. The machine also has a tremendous voltage source. "No smoking or open flames within twenty feet while operating!"
The lab begins to warm up and I notice a smell: the thunderstorm precursor scent of ozone. I smell a lot of ozone, way more than the spicy little whiff one enjoys from the power source of one's train set. I start to feel dizzy and I can't concentrate on the not overly spellbinding TCP/IP documentation I'm reading. I open the door to the hall a little wider and find reasons to go elsewhere.
This run doesn't work out. No nanotubes. Bummer. But we've got all summer…
540 words | June 11, 2004 08:09 PM | Rocket science