Week+of+6-27+to+6-30

6-27-11 Guido and I began the day by annealing a piece of gold and preparing a sample. Our sample was 100 mM DTC2 and 10 mM Octanethiol. Guido annealed while i watched and learned how to use the hydrogen tank and learned the techniques for annealing the gold.After we annealed the gold we prepared the solution into which we placed the gold for two and a half hours. The solution was 47.94 microliters of DTC2(dithiocarbonate) and 86.77 microliters of Octanethiol.We did not do too much scanning today 6-27-11AB media type="custom" key="10389216" 6-27-11AC media type="custom" key="10389258" 6-28-11 The STM was not working (approching) when we came in at 9 A.M. and did not begin working until 10:30 A.M. After lunch Guido and I began scanning and got some pretty good images showing the Octanethiol and DTC2. We scanned the same sample of 10 mM Octnethiol and 100 mM DTC2 on Au(III) from yesterday. 6-28-11AB media type="custom" key="10389404" 6-28-11AD media type="custom" key="10389496" 6-28-11AI media type="custom" key="10389536" 6-28-11AJ media type="custom" key="10389606"

6-29-11 We began scanning with the same 10 mM DTC2 100 mM Octanethiol on Au(III) sample but later we changed to the sample we made today. Later in the day I annealed a sample of gold and made a solution of 100 mM Octanethiol and 10 mM dtc2. The solution was 47.94 microliters of DTC2 and 86.77 microliters of Octanethiol. However, while annealing, i burnt a corner of the gold. The first two images were not very good then we changed the tip and got a couple better looking images than before. 6-29-11AC media type="custom" key="10389624" 6-29-11AE media type="custom" key="10389636" 6-29-11AF media type="custom" key="10389646" 6-29-11AG media type="custom" key="10389664" 6-29-11AH media type="custom" key="10389686" 6-29-11AL media type="custom" key="10389718" 6-29-11AP media type="custom" key="10389776" 6-30-11 Professor Kandel, Natalie, Guido and I spent the first half of the day setting up the laser system. We soldered the wires connecting the piezo stack to the power supply/resistor. We scanned for a bit after lunch but mostly just kept working on setting up the laser system. I mistakenly named this page wrong, it should be Week of 6-27 to 7-1. 7-1-11 Sharon is a grade school teacher at Lasalle and worked with me and Guido for a little bit. Guido, Sharon, and I scanned unannealed gold to test out the piezo stack and laser functions. The piezo stack works and we scanned the gold with half of the available volatge in the battery pack for the piezo stack. We move the sample holder by increasing or decreasing the amount of voltage that goes through to the piezo stack which will extend when voltage is added to it and retract when voltage is being reduced. Then after scanning the unannealed gold, we decreased the voltage of the piezo stack then hit the gold with the laster. After shining the laser we put the voltage back up to its previous amount then scanned again. Before the laser the voltage was 27.65 V and then we changed it until it was zero volts. After this we shined the laser for 5 minutes.Then we put the voltage back up to 27.65 volts. We took several before and after images but neither were very good so it was hard to tell if much had actually changed. Before: 7-1-11AP

After: 7-1-11AQ media type="custom" key="10199957"