Days 3-8

I had the intention of blogging every day. That way I could look back and remember what I did every day. Clearly that idea failed.


Day 3: Thursday, May 30th.
After a 24 hour soak, the monolayers were present on gold chips. (Whoo!) But this needed to be verified. I then performed three processes on all 6 chips.

1. Measuring the contact angle: I did this by using placing a droplet of water and then measured the angle of the droplet on the chip. For two of the monolayers, the water beaded up like you would expect on a rain jacket. This indicated that the monolayer was hydrophobic. For the other monolayer, the water spread very thinly across the chip making it very difficult to measure the angle and indicating that the monolayer was hydrophilic.

2. Ellipsometry: Again I journeyed to the CeNSE lab and used the ellipsometer to measure the thickness of the monolayer. We told the device the thickness of the silicon chip and the gold (as measured two days before). The ellipsometer then measured the thickness of the entire chip and subtracts out the silicon and gold revealing only the thickness of the monolayer.

We ran out of time and so the third processes needed to take place on Day 4.


Day 4: Friday, May 31st
3. FTIR: Chris (another student in Dr. Berron's lab) helped me use the FTIR to determine the frequencies of the 6 chips. Each chemical has a unique set of characteristic frequencies that can be seen on the graph produced from the FTIR. By examining the wavelength of these peaks, we can determine the components of the monolayer thus ensuring that the monolayer we placed on the chip is the monolayer we wanted to adhere to the chip. For all 6 chips, it was confirmed that the monolayer was that which we wanted on the chip.  This took like 3 hours. It was annoying. First we had to do a control. But we had to clean it using the plasma cleaner (which we had to wait 45 minutes to use) and then analyze it using FTIR. And each FTIR process takes about 15 minutes. So 7 chips later, this took about two hours.

That was all we accomplished for that day.

That night Alex and I were both just sitting in our beds watching TV on our computers. We decided that this was not how a Friday night should be spent. We went to Pint Night on Thursday just us two and while the beer was delicious and the food was good, we wished more people had come along. So then on Friday, we went around and knocked on doors and convinced people to come with us for a walk around town. We ended up going to DQ and literally just walked around UK. It was fun. Built some nice camaraderie. Wish more people would just knock on each other's doors and hang out.


Day 5 & 6: Saturday and Sunday.
I went to my sister's apartment (her husband goes to UK Med School so they live like a 7 minute walk from Donovan). I got to take a good shower! In a real bathroom! It was wonderful. Highlight of my weekend. On Saturday we went to church and Red Lobster for dinner. Which was great because we skyped my mom and little sister before we went to church and my mom texted me while we were in church and told me to put dinner on her card. Free Dinner = Win!

On Sunday we just kinda sat around their apartment for most of the day which was fun. I don't get to see them a lot so it was good to just get to hang and laugh and be just like the old times. I returned to my dorm a little later than I wanted to, but that's okay. I still got all the reading I needed to get done finished.

The readings were very dense and confusing and I'm gonna say I understand maybe 50% of them. Solid. I took notes though which I think helped me better understand it.

Day 7: Monday, June 3rd
So, Leila and I finished everything that Dr. Trinkle and Dr. Berron had planned for the first couple days ahead of schedule so we finished early on Friday and didn't have anything to do on Monday until our meeting with the Drs at 2:00 so I did a little bit more research. The meeting went pretty well I think. Dr. Berron said that most of my results were as expected and that I had made a lot of progress. They asked me a lot of questions and such and I guess it was to verify that I understood what I was doing and not just going through the motions. I think I did pretty well with my responses because Dr. Trinkle and Dr. Berron agreed that they were impressed with my knowledge and how comfortable I was talking about my research already. We talked about the next steps and what not, but mainly we needed this new chemical to come in.

Day 8: Tuesday, June 4th
I thought that Dr. Berron had said something about a combination of monomers that we could try until the new chemical came in. But Leila didn't think we should do anything until it came in. So, I kinda feel like I have been slacking for two days cause I have done pretty much nothing but read articles and look up what words mean. Although I'm pretty sure I semi-understand what I am supposed to be doing now. And I can almost tell you in detail how the FTIR works. So, I guess that's something.


I took a bunch of pictures on Thursday and Friday to give a visual to go with the words. So... let's see if these work.

The construction work that's happening outside my window that wakes me up at 6am everyday.

The beer when Alex and I went to Pint Night on Wednesday. It was Sunner Korsch.

This is what my desk looks like.

My 6 chips in their petri dishes that are properly labeled.

My very own tweezers!

The solutions I made that I soaked the chips in to create the monolayers.

My attempt to take a selfie in a ruined silicon chip coated in gold.

Second Attempt.

Third Attempt: Success!!

What the chip looks like without my face in it and before cracking. (This chip is actually ruined, but you get the idea.)

What a poorly cracked chip looks like. (This chip was also ruined and so I practiced the art of cracking with a sharp pointy metal object.)