Week+of+10-20+and+10-21

10-20-11

I arrived today at 3:30 and began scanning Octanethiol on Au(111). My first scan was not the greatest but I zoomed in to the area on the right side of the scan in the middle. "AB" was very poorly defined so I switched the tip after it. The next image I fully scanned, "AC", was great in terms of definition with a large area and in feautres. I zoomed in to the middle of "AC" and scanned that region. Unfortunately, the promising area in the first scan proved unable to be seen in the second scan due to tip quality. I finished the image and then changed the tip. "AE" started out really badly but after adjusting some of the settings it turned out very good with lots of features and reasonable definition. I zoomed in to the left upper middle of "AE" for "AF". Then, I zoomed in to the upper part of the image and extended past the top for "AG". "AG" had some very nice features. There was not any visible Octanethiol on this image. I zoomed in to the left upper half of "AG" to scan "AH". "AH" had too little definition and too few features to shoot the laser at so I switched the tip afterwards. "AI" was very odd. There were random streaks throughout the image but there were plenty of slightly visible features. The next image was terribly defined and had no features. I stopped the scan halfway through and changed the tip. "AI" has very well-defined features. I had high hopes for the next image. I zoomed in to the large top portion of the image. This image, "AK", had well-defined features. I decided to shoot the laser at this image to see what would happen to the features. I brought the power of the piezoelectric supply from 45.0 V to 5.0 V. Then I shot the laser for fifty seconds. Afterwards, I let the sample cool for five minutes. I then brought the piezoelectric power supply back up to 45.0 V. I began scanning. This after scan seemed to have moved because the features do not seem the same between the two images. 10-20-11AA media type="custom" key="10962610" This image showed little definition and I should not have wasted my time zooming in to the upper right corner. 10-20-11AB media type="custom" key="10962650" There is nothing really to this image besides contrast of black and white and a small portion of orange and streaks. I changed the tip after this image. 10-20-11AC media type="custom" key="10962656" This image showed a large amount of features but lacked a substantial amount of definition. I hoped that this was due to the large scanning area and that zooming in would provide a more defined image which I could shoot the laser at. 10-20-11AD media type="custom" key="10962660" Unfortunately, I was incorrect about the definition. This image showed a bad tip, as seen by the streaks across the image. I changed the tip after this. AC-AD media type="custom" key="10963630" 10-20-11AE media type="custom" key="10962688" I am not quite sure about what happened at the top of the image or the bottom of the image. However, in between the two images. there are a good amount of features and a reasonable amount of definition. I zoomed in to the top left corner of the image. 10-20-11AF media type="custom" key="10962698"

This image was not very defined. It showed quite a bit of noise for a majority of the image. The quality of the image improved drastically at the top. I zoomed into that area and extended the new scanning area above this current area.

10-20-11AG media type="custom" key="10962710" This image had features with precisely defined boundaries There was no real indication of octanethiol on the surface. I wanted to try to get a smaller image area to look for Octanethiol. 10-20-11AH media type="custom" key="10962718" I zoomed in to the left upper corner of the previous image for this scan. This image possible showed some octanethiol but most likely just showed a lack of definition caused by the tip. I changed the tip after this image. AF-AH media type="custom" key="10963542"

10-20-11AI media type="custom" key="10962722" This image was very weird. There were a lot of random streaks but plenty of features throughout. I tried to zoom in to the right side in the middle to see if I could get anything.The image I was scanning was terrible and I stopped it halfway through and changed the tip. 10-20-11AJ media type="custom" key="10962728" This image was just a general scan and showed a good amount of features. I zoomed in to the large region on the top half of the image. 10-20-11AK media type="custom" key="10962744" The features in this image are extremely well defined and its possible but unlikely that we can see the octanethiol on this surface. I decided to shoot the laser at this image. AJ-AK media type="custom" key="10963636" 10-20-11AL media type="custom" key="10962754" I am not quite sure whether the image moved up or down or what exactly happened here. I cannot see any features that look very similar from the first to the second image. 10-21-11 I came in today at 3:30 and began scanning the same sample of Octanethiol on Au(111) from yesterday. The first image was not very good so I changed the tip. The second scan I started worked but the sample holder tipped over and laid against the edge so it crashed the tip and screwed up the scan. I reapproached this and the next scan was alright in terms of features. I zoomed in to the majority of the bottom half for the next image. This image was also pretty good and had lots of features. This image did not have very much definition so I attempted to zoom in to the middle of the top halfof the image. This next image was terribly defined so I stopped the scan and changed the tip. After this, I was unable to successfully scan a full image for the rest of the day. The LED screen on the piezoelectric power supply box stopped working correctly. Overall, today was a very disappointing and unproductive day in the lab. 10-21-11AA media type="custom" key="10988040" This image showed no real definition of anything and does not even appear to show and hills or valleys. It was just a blurry image caused by a bad tip 10-21-11AB media type="custom" key="10988050" This image was a lot better than the first one, though that is not saying much. There were some pretty clear features in this image and I zoomed in on the area that the largest concentration of them. 10-21-11AC media type="custom" key="10988064" This image, although it had a large amount of features, had very poor definition and I could go no further with it for I would be unable to see anything on a smaller scale besides blurs. AB-AC media type="custom" key="10988252"