October+4-5

October 4th:

The sample I used today was annealed by Annette. Becky thought this would be a good idea because Annette has the most experience annealing of anyone in the lab. Also, there were some strange effects on the gold, such as holes and ripples, that showed up on Matt and Becky's samples, but not Annette's. Becky attributed this to annealing, and asked Annette to anneal the piece. Becky then put the sample on the Polonium-210 on the 29th of September, meaning it was exposed for 6 days. This is more than the usual hour to 24 hour window. Also, Becky made a new holder for the gold to expose only half of it. She had previously been using a thin of aluminum foil below the gold with another piece just above it, to shield half of the gold. However, she switched to a more robust version that is more along the lines of a washer with a half-quarter sized piece of aluminum foil above it. I was back in the lab, as Valerie was busy and couldn't be with me in the Rad Lab basement. I scanned for the whole day, with usual, although impressive results. The scans were coming out clearly, despite using a tip from last week. However, by the 7th image, something strange was happening. There were plateaus of gold, but with large areas between them. It was nothing like the usual "corn flake" appearance. These we large, almost steppe like protrusions with large, flat valleys in between. Becky said that these were strange and suggested that I get more images of them. I scanned a total of 5 images of these strange steppes. There we so few scans because the AFM takes a while to actually scan the surface. I was at the lab from about 4:00 (because of my meeting with Dr. Loughran and Leslie) until about 6:45. I decided to stay later because the images were so unusual and the quality so good.

October 5th:

Becky was at a meeting until about 5:30 so I continued scanning the same sample from the 4th (Au (III) exposed for 6 days). I was in the lab and just using the portable AFM. I seem to be getting better at scanning because the approach takes less time (meaning the tip is closer) and the images are becoming clearer and more defined. Also, Becky says that the images are impressive, especially for a portable scope. The images were coming out clearly and pretty quickly, although with less anomalies that yesterday. This was a pretty standard day with good scans. However, I was unable to relocate the same steppe-like area from yesterday. I was scanning the exposed side for most of the time, with some covered scans as well. I was in the lab for the regular time of 3:30 to 6:00.