Week+of+3-21+and+3-22

3-21-12 I came in today and began scanning a sample of Octanethiol on Au(111) that Natalie prepared.The first three scans ended with me changing the tip halfway through the scan. I zoomed in to the top right of"AA". I stopped the scan halfway through because it was so poor. The next scan was also poor; I changed the tip. I cut the tip once more after stopping the next scan about halfway through. "AB" was pretty blurry. I zoomed in to the bottom left quadrant to try and get a flatter and better surface. It had a large amount of streaks. I stopped this about 3/4 of the way through and cut the tip. "AC" was decently blurry. The parameters were not very well-adjusted so I zoomed in to the left middle region. The zoomed in scan had many streaks. I stopped the scan and cut the tip. The next scan was also fairly poor; I stopped it about 3/4 of the way through and changed the tip.I zoomed in to the bottom left quadrant of "AD", which was fairly blurry because of the discrepancy in elevation as seen in the bottom right and bottom middle. "AE" was packed full of features. I zoomed in to the top left quadrant of it. The zoomed in scan was horribly blurry. I could barely distinguish between the features and the surface. I stopped it and cut the tip about 2/5 of the way through the scan. The last scan was very poor; there were lots of streaks and it was hard to distinguish any clear features. 3-21-12AA media type="custom" key="13433076" The streaks on the edges of the larger areas give the most obvious evidence that this image was scanned with a fairly poor tip. The few features here are not well-defined.

3-21-12AB media type="custom" key="13433092" The region in the top middle and the bottom middle show most clearly that this was a poor image. There is an abundant amount of streaks. There are several features but they are too hard to really study with the large amount of noise present. 3-21-12AC media type="custom" key="13433116" It is fairly difficult to see anything in this image. The features are covered with a large amount of noise and they are very faint. The undefined boundaries were a pretty big clue as to the poor quality of the tip. 3-21-12AD media type="custom" key="13433168" Most of the problems with this image were caused by the huge discrepancy in the elevation of the surface.It makes it hard for me to see anything in the lower right quadrant. The top fifth is blurry because I had not fully adjusted the parameters yet. I could faintly see that there were some features on this image so I zoomed in to the bottom left quadrant, where I could see the most features. 3-21-12AE media type="custom" key="13433186" This image is incredibly interesting. The features are plentiful and for the most part are well-defined. The main problem with this image is the assortment of diagonal streaks that flow across the entirety of the image, showing a decent yet not good enough tip.

3-22-12 I came in today and reconnected the wires that connect the piezoelectric stack to its power supply box. While doing this, the end of the sample holder came apart from the rest of the sample holder. I cannot utilize the piezoelectric stack today nor the laser functions. I scanned with a regular sample holder and was still unable to procure anything of importance. My only finished scan was very grainy. I had to leave early with Guido to go to an induction ceremony for the different languages. 3-22-12AA media type="custom" key="13478520" There are a few faint valleys in the middle region of this image. It looks very grainy and it is difficult to really make out anything in this image; it just looks like a bunch of nonsense.