Undergraduate Summer Experiences of 2002

Adam Crain, class of 2003
I spent three months this summer (winter actually) in La Serena, Chile working with the SOAR team on the topic of remote astronomy. I wrote software for this purpose, participated in design meetings, and learned about software control of instrumentation in general.

On the weekends I backpacked in the Andes and went rock climbing. On a three day trip, a friend and I were caught in a ten hour blizzard at 12,500 feet. We pitched our tent in a cave, waited out the storm, and walked down the next day in snow up to our waists in many places.

Josh Carter, class of 2004
This past summer I worked through the DOE's Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship (ERULF) program at Princeton University. I worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory with the Magnetic Reconnection Group. I studied Magnetic Fluctuation in the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment. My research included spectral analysis of the fluctuations calculating coherence lengths in the plasma eventually leading to dispersion relations to explain magnetic fast reconnection.

The program was 10 weeks. We stayed on the campus for the entire summer. I completed both a paper on my research and will complete a poster for the APS conference in Orlando in November. More information can be found on the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory homepage. (go to research projects for more on MRX).

Ken Varner, Class of 2003
In the summers of 2001 and 2002, I participated in the Department of Energy's internship program entitled Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship. My appointment was at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. This lab is the nation's premier research and development center for renewable energy and energy efficiency. My research was evaluating amorphous silicon as a spontaneous water splitting device via photoelectrolysis. In other words, I was researching solar hydrogen.

The enlightening experience taught me so many valuable aspects to science and the field of renewable energy. I saw how life in a lab operates on a day to day basis, how to be a part of a team of intelligent individuals, how to go about research, and a lot about photoelectrochemistry. My research led to an invitation to lecture at a physics conference in Cuba. The experience demonstrated to me that being in a lab for my professional career can be extremely exhilarating and rewarding. It gave me lots of confidence by letting me successfully achieve world-class research. Regarding renewable energy, I got to see where the US stands in regards to present technology and what direction the US wants to move in with this field. Also, I cleared many of my misconceptions related to renewable energy since I was at the place with all the answers.

I loved the atmosphere at the lab. Everyone there was part of the same noble mission of utilizing clean energy. I could read this on everyone's face at the institution. They were such positive people. It was the most rewarding experience I have ever had. My education finally made since to me while I was there.

For more information, take a look at the Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowships homepage.

Courtney Pinard, Class of 2003
Studying Nanotechnology at Beijing University

I discovered this opportunity through an email from my research advisor at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (UNC). I am a senior physics major at UNC. During my junior year, I conducted research in Raman Spectroscopy group under Dr. Laurie McNeil. Thanks to my REU experience at Peking University, I will make great progress in my research this year, which will involve the analysis of the electrical and chemical properties of my carbon nanotube and silicon nanowire samples.

I plan to attend the American Physical Society meeting in March of 2003 and present my work. The 2002 international REU program in Beijing was an amazing learning experience – scientifically, culturally, and socially. This experience brought together science and international studies. Not only did we learn new science in one of the greatest physics department in the world; we learned the way in which culture influences science. We made friends with both physics students and non-physics students who taught us a great deal about the geography, history, customs, and food of China. In addition to the stories told by our friends, we were able to experience parts of the history every weekend through the REU-sponsored sightseeing events. I hope that in the future, many more American students will have the same opportunity to study physics at Peking University.

First, and foremost, we focused on our 4-week research projects. My research project was carbon nanotube (CNT) and silicon nanowire (SNW) fabrication using chemical vapor deposition (CVD). I learned one mechanism of CNT fabrication and one mechanism for SNW growth. Chen Xi Hong, the graduate student I worked with, helped me understand the problems of nano-scale growth using the hot wire filament CVD furnace. When something went wrong in my experiment, she patiently explained the process and equipment again before I repeated the procedure. Chen Xi Hong worked with me sometimes until 10pm. I quickly learned that the students work very hard on their research and are very driven to accomplish their goals, but also were very giving of their time. Zhue Yan Wue, another graduate student, even gave me his bike to ride to and from the physics building while I was there! Peking undergraduates helped me as well in my research. Wang Ying and Xiang Ping helped me look at my sample under the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Xiang Jia, a student who will attend Harvard in the fall, showed me his Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) images of GaN nanowires. These are only a few examples of how Peking physics students offered their time and energy to help a few American physics undergrads.

We were very fortunate to have the opportunity to be at Peking University. Some students call Peking University the “Harvard” of China. The research conducted there is some of the best research in the world. My professor, Dapeng Yu, for example, was one of the first to discover Si nanowires. His research, along with that of Dr. Leiber’s group from Harvard, brought a new dimension to nanotechnology. Most professors have studied outside of China and many have international collaborations. As a result, the university holds many annual international conferences in science and technology. While we were there, we went to talks given by world-renowned speakers ranging from quantum computing to femtosecond lasers. I attended seminars during a 3-day international conference on nanotechnology. Chinese and United States Physics Examination and Application (CUSPEA) was also held during the time we were there. CUSPEA is a program that allows many Chinese students to study in America. In between my research, I was able to attend a few talks. Coincidentally, the only talk on carbon nanotubes was given by Dr. Lu, a professor from UNC! This was a big surprise to me because I didn’t know I would be seeing someone from my school in Beijing! I introduced Dr. Lu to my research professor, Dapeng Yu. They met and spoke in Chinese for about 1 hour about carbon nanotubes. Science brings people together in the most ironic ways.

We also learned about different physics fields outside of the University. Dr. Ren, our REU supervisor, took us to the Chinese Academy of Science - Institute of Physics for a tour. Many of the instruments, like the cyclotrons, were designed by the scientists themselves; the cost and time of repair is much longer in China when equipment is made by a manufacturer. Scientists gave us personal tours of such labs as atomic tweezers, quantum dot experiments, optics, silicon processing, and high-energy experimental physics.

Aside from the research, we had some wonderful sightseeing adventures with our Chinese friends. We went to the Great Wall, Tiananmen, the Ming Tombs, the Palace Museum, the Summer Palace, local silk markets, and the Temple of Heaven. Not only did we experience the history visually, we had the opportunity to learn from our friends from Peking University. They shared many Chinese stories with us, told us about many traditional pieces of art, and expanded our taste for Chinese food when we ordered at a restaurant. Communication was completely open on both sides. Discussions included issues about politics, history, education, cultural differences, movies, music (especially at Xiang Jia’s party), and of course, science.

I view China differently after this experience. Not only did I learn physics through my research experiments and seminars; I started to learn about a culture, a different way of living. As the days passed, I started to enjoy and appreciate every minute I spent with our friends. I watched how problems were solved, how people worked, what people talked about, what made people laugh. It was the little things like these that I wrote in my journal. Knowing how to make carbon nanotubes helped me further develop my “research” work habits for my science career, but spending four weeks at Peking University changed how I view the world - scientifically, socially, and culturally.

REU Experience at the University of California – Irvine: Music and Physics

At the University of California, Irvine, I worked with professor Gordon Shaw on a new experiment to survey women professional musicians who played their instrument while pregnant and to study the sound level of musical frequencies, which are transmitted through the mother’s womb to the fetus. It has previously been shown that the innate ability of the structured cortex to recognize memory patterns related by symmetries was the elemental operation for higher brain functions involved in spatial-temporal reasoning and processing of music. Music, then, can be thought of as a pre-language used to access the inherent firing patterns and can enhance the cortex’s ability to improve higher-level brain functions. The factors taken into account in our model were the sound level of the internal noise floor, the attenuation of external signals provided by tissues and fluids surrounding the fetal head, and the actual sound transmission. We then generalized the criteria of transmission related to conduction and linear attenuation. Our results showed that certain acoustic frequencies get attenuated, but the musical phrases are still left intact.