Week+of+9-5-2012

9-5-2012 I began scanning today with a new substance coating the surface of the gold, C-60 (Buckminsterfullerene ). 9-5-12AA This image does not have the best quality. The edges are not well defined and there are no clear features here. There are plenty of streaks as shown by the many white lines. 9-5-12AB Drift caused this image to fail halfway through. Some C-60 molecules seem to be present in the upper right quadrant. I adjusted the drift and moved the scanning region to a flatter region. 9-5-12AC The brightest spots in this image, according to Matt, were caused by junk. However, the less bright blobs present throughout the image before it drifted are most likely C-60 molecules but they are too high-density for the information we want to learn. 9-5-12AD This image is the same region as that in AC. I just wanted to try and take a full image of it because AC drifted and I wanted to heat this. I retracted the tip, heated it for 5 seconds, then let it cool for a few minutes. It approached in 17 steps then I let it drift for another couple more minutes. 9-5-12AE This was the after image of the heating. The large groups of white dots seem more so to be collections of C-60 molecules rather than mounds typically seen on gold surfaces. Also, they are less bright than a typical gold surface mound. They are very high-density though, a problem for our research. 9-5-12AF This image has many of the same characteristics of the previous image but is slightly blurrier. 9-6-2012 I came in today to find one of the undergrads,Chris, working with the C-60 sample that Matt had prepared for today. By the time I came in, the sample was damaged from repeated heating and from all the fiddling with it. We could not find any images of any real worth or quality. I spent most of my time today procuring data so that I can upload pictures. 9-6-12AS This image has many streaks and is very blurry, a clear indicator of a bad tip. The lighter colored regions contain what could be construed as Buckeyballs but their identity is questionable based on the definition of this image. There is too much noise here to really determine anything.

9-6-12AT There is not really anything to be gained from this image as it is incredibly blurry. The surface does not contain distinct features or discrete molecules. Also, the drift caused the interruptions that were quite frequent in the second half of the image.

9-6-12AU The molecules on the surface in this image are somewhat more prevalent but the streaks indicate the poor quality of the tip and most likely also the sample. The lighter regions look more just like blobs than mounds on the surface of gold. The edges of the steps are not distinct, another indicator of the poor quality here. 9-6-12AV The molecules on this surface are a little bit more clear than in any other image from this day. They are most likely the Buckeyballs and are in very high density, much higher than what we wold like to have. The upper third of this image has mostly poor quality because of the huge pit that runs diagonally through it. 9-6-12AW This surface shows the molecules less clearly than the one before. The upper third has two huge pits on both sides which is the cause for the much more horrible quality there than the rest of the image. However, there are also a lot of streaks here, obscuring the C-60 molecules throughout. The blobs look like junk on the surface, which is very likely based on what Chris and Matt said about the sample's quality.