Week+of+12-10-2012

12-10-2012 I came into the lab today and began scanning a sample of Octanethiol on Gold using the old scope just to see if it would work since Matt had not yet gotten the chance to machining the base for the electronics. I should be able to work on it tomorrow though. Meanwhile, I attempted to scan a sample of Octanethiol on gold just to see if it was entirely broken. It didn't get off to a good start as the electronics had all been messed up. After adjusting all of these and enduring a long approach, it was finally tunneling. The scan was garbage and Matt told me just to change the tip and to try again. If it didn't work a second time, it would most likely be due to the dysfunctional scope rather than the tips that I was cutting. The second time around was just as fruitless as the first. 12-10-12AA There is just simply nothing to be seen here that resembles any sort of gold surface. It's just noise and blurriness. It gives credence to our assumption that the scope is indeed broken and that making a new one was the right course of action. Following these two scans, I tried scanning in the Y-direction(AC) to see if the image would resemble the region scanned in AB and found only that the constant in both images was the noise. 12-10-12AB 12-10-12AC Although today was not an entirely successfully day in scanning and observing changes caused by heat on gold surfaces, I did manage to demonstrate that our assumption about the scope's condition is so far true as seen by the horrible scans here. It is, however, still able to scan which is somewhat surprising but that part is unimportant since no real results can be obtained by using it. A replacement scope is definitely a great course of action as we will be able to get much more consistent results because it will be specifically designed for my heating project. Building of my scope will resume early January when all the parts will have finally arrived. 12-11-2012 Today I came into the lab and began working on assembling the box that will house the electronics for the scope that Matt and I are re-building. Matt and I went to the Physics stockroom in Nieuwland to get some 4-40 screws to hold up the power supply in the box. Afterwords, I used the Dremel tool to sand down the paint surrounding the holes of the box through which the screws will go so that every part of the box is electrically grounded. I then proceeded to cut and solder the wires that will go from the wall outlet to the switch and then into the voltage regulating power supply. These pictures give a better idea about what I did today. Below is the front of the box which will be plugged directly into the wall. The upper yellow wire is the Hot(Line) wire that goes through the on/off switch to the L port on the power supply which is on the far right here. The lower yellow wire is the neutral wire that connects to the N port on the power supply through the on/off switch. The bottom left blue wire connects directly to ground. The computer chip-like device in the bottom left is going to be what controls the scanning of the scope but is nowhere close to being finished as Matt still has to write the code that will run the scope. Below are the front ports of power supply. They are connected to their respective spots on the on/off switch and the wall outlet input via these blue wires shown in the bottom half of this image.