First Post: First Half of the Fall

Week 5 is here, and with it midterms and the harsh realization that senior year is flying by. Time flies when you’re having fun, especially when that fun is in the IRIS lab in the basement of Olin!

Union’s AFM, an Asylum research MFP3D model, is located in this remote nook. I have been trained on AFM operation and have outlined my strategy for designing and implementing a suite of custom functions for the AFM. I will post about the specific details of my progress with pictures and  reflections at a later date, but for now it suffices to say that an initially daunting project has resolved itself to a task within my range of competence.

My weekly progress is being documented and discussed with my co-advisors Prof Catravas and Prof Dovidenko. These meetings are aimed to be reflective about my progress and challenges with recent work as well as formative in planning the next week’s goals.

So far, I believe that I have employed a consistent and efficient strategy to find success in the project. I will post the results of a small voltage/ microscope stage position program which will showcase my new ability to compile and run user defined functions on the AFM.