Thursday, January 25, 2007
Experiments done, semester started
Whew. It was an extremely busy three weeks of running experiments from Jan 2 to the end of last week. Pauline & kids didn't see much of me at all.
But we had some success! A student, Lee Wienkes, and I had designed a "microwave resonant cavity" which we were testing out. The resonant cavity is a small metal cylinder that amplifies the electric/magnetic fields when you shine light at it with a certain frequency, in much the same way that a bell will amplify a sound wave if you give it the right audio frequency corresponding to the bell's natural tone.
With a lot of serious delays/equipment problems/last minute equipment-control programming/etc, we emerged triumphant! Here is our glorious magnetic resonance signal, from a well-studied indium phosphine sample, doped with zinc impurities.
We chose a well-studied sample so that the testing of the cavity would be easier; now we can move on to samples that are more unique.
And now it's on to the semester. I'm teaching the following:
* Electrodynamics
* First year physics lab
* Circuits, with accompanying lab
* a "Capstone course" for graduating seniors
I've taught them all before, except the capstone course, but it is a bit hard having so many different classes, as opposed to multiple sections of the same class. We'll see how things go.
Hopefully now I can go back to a more frequent blog updating schedule.
But we had some success! A student, Lee Wienkes, and I had designed a "microwave resonant cavity" which we were testing out. The resonant cavity is a small metal cylinder that amplifies the electric/magnetic fields when you shine light at it with a certain frequency, in much the same way that a bell will amplify a sound wave if you give it the right audio frequency corresponding to the bell's natural tone.
With a lot of serious delays/equipment problems/last minute equipment-control programming/etc, we emerged triumphant! Here is our glorious magnetic resonance signal, from a well-studied indium phosphine sample, doped with zinc impurities.
We chose a well-studied sample so that the testing of the cavity would be easier; now we can move on to samples that are more unique.
And now it's on to the semester. I'm teaching the following:
* Electrodynamics
* First year physics lab
* Circuits, with accompanying lab
* a "Capstone course" for graduating seniors
I've taught them all before, except the capstone course, but it is a bit hard having so many different classes, as opposed to multiple sections of the same class. We'll see how things go.
Hopefully now I can go back to a more frequent blog updating schedule.
# posted by John Colton @ 10:12 AM 
