Week 9 August 1st - 6th

So this week we wrapped up the internship. On Monday we had dry runs of our presentations. I learned a lot about presentations. A person can really tell how much time someone spent on making the presentation just by the look of it. I am glad that I worked hard on my presentation. There were just a few things that I needed to change after the dry run. I was happy that I didn’t have to redo my presentation and I just need to make a couple of slides clearer. I made the changes and then practice a couple of times and was ready for the real thing. On Tuesday we had the presentations at AIP in College Park. I don’t mind talking in front of people but I still was nervous. My mom and dad were able to come and listen which is always nice but I think that made me more nervous. Overall the presentations went great. My parents enjoyed them and that should say something since they aren’t really that into physics. I was interested in a lot of the other interns work because I had been hearing about their work all summer and finally saw what they did. I think my favorite day of the week was Wednesday when the interns came to AIP and talked about the internship and then I went on a tour of NASA Goddard Space Center. I had never been to NASA even though I grew up 20mins from it. I really enjoyed the information I learned during the tour and want to thank my fellow intern Carl Campbell for setting up the tour. It was a short week for the internship as it was the last one.
To finish up my week I moved out of my apartment in DC on Wednesday night. I had to because I started work at a summer swim camp the next morning. I worked at the Fairland Aquatic Center last summer as a camp counselor and they needed me again this summer to finish up for them. So I went from one job to another. I didn’t even get a break. I enjoy working with the kids but it is completely different from working at NIST. So I am working for a week at the camp and then get a break. It was a sad day to finish the internship. I really enjoyed the experience.

Branson, MO July 24th - July 31st

So I took a week long break from my internship to go to Branson, Missouri. One might ask, what is in Branson? My response before I went was NOTHING!!!! Then I went. My mom's side of the family the Becksteads had a family reunion. I wasn't excited about going to Missouri but was excited to see my cousins. But now I do recommend people that want to have a relaxed vacation to go to Branson. There is tons of stuff to do there. It is known for all the shows. There are tons of plays, musicals, concerts, and more.
For the family reunion we all stayed in this huge lodge. Staying all together causes for some fun times. My mom and her sisters planned the whole thing. We planned activities each day to do as a family. Each day that we were there we celebrated a different holiday. Saturday the 24th is actually a holiday for us Mormons it is pioneer day which is the day that the pioneers traveling west to arrive in Utah. So that was the day that all of us were traveling to Branson. On Sunday we celebrated Valentine's Day where we wrote everyone in the family a valentine. We also decorated heart shaped sugar cookies. Monday we celebrated PI day 3.14. We made some good pies. I sure love to eat pies. Also on Monday we went to the lake and rented a boat to go water skiing, wakeboarding, and tubing. It was sooo much fun. I could've been out there all day. I tried wakeboarding and I could not get up. I would've tried all day but I knew other people wanted to try. Though I did love tubing. On Tuesday was a day of rest. We celebrated Easter and had a good dinner. I went with some of my cousins and my grandparents and saw Noah the musical show. It was really a great show. At the end one of the people working at the theater got up and started talking about Christ and how we need to accept him in our lives. This is true but there is more to it than to just accept Christ. So my Grandpa being the man that he is said, "It was a great production! Too bad they don't know what they're talking about." After dinner most of us went Go-carting and then to a hollywood wax museum. Driving a go-cart was a lot of fun but the wax museum was a waste of money.
On Wednesday we went to Silver Dollar City, which is the amusement park in Branson. There were only a few good rides and they were on the opposite side of the park from each other. I rode each of them at least 3 times. But other than that it is a waste of time and money. It really isn't some place to spend a whole day at. But it was still a fun day and we celebrated everyone's birthday on this day. We got a pair of socks for our gift. I love that because I always need more socks. Thursday was supposed to be a day of rest but it turned into a busy and early day. I went golfing in the morning with my dad and cousins Stuart and Tyler. It was lots of fun. the last time I went golfing was 6 years ago so I was out of practice. I finally got the hang of it by the last hole. We golfed 13 holes. After that we went to a Zipline place. We rode 5 ziplines and walekd across 3 rope bridges. It was tons of fun. I love going fast and swinging through the air. My favorite memory of it was when my Aunt Sandra came into one of the stops backwards off the zipline and so she didn't slow herself down and completely took out our guide. It was hilarious. I will definitely have to go again sometime. After that we went home and enjoyed a great Thanksgiving meal. That evening we went as a whole family to the Chinese acrobat show. All I can say is ouch. It was great.
Friday might have been one of the best days because it was the best holiday. Christmas!!! My sisters and I made paper stockings for everyone and got people their favorite candy in the spirit of Santa Claus. Also, we went to the water park. That was amazing. There were so many good slides and I just love the water. It was a great way to end the family reunion. We had a great Christmas dinner and then exchanged gifts. I am so happy to be a member of the Beckstead family. I was not excited to come home. More I wasn't excited to have to drive all the way home. We drove out there but I was excited to get to Branson so it was different. I was not excited to get home except that meant I wasn't in a car when we did get home. My family got home Sunday night after stopping in Louisville on Saturday night and then getting back to Maryland Sunday. I had a great vacation and love seeing my extended family every chance I get. I can't wait until the next family reunion.

Week 8 July 17th - 23rd

Wow another week down. This is crazy that the end of the summer is just weeks away. This past week a lot was accomplished. I was able to collect more data than ever about the samples of Iron I am working with. To refresh people’s memory I am working with a thin film of iron on a silicon wafer. I etch it to make the thin film smaller and smaller. This week we made a 1% solution of the phosphoric acid to etch our samples. The 1% solution etched a lot slower and smoother than the 2 and 5 percent solution I had previously used. This made for cleaner data and the ability to see a trend easier. We determined that the etching had made the surface rough when we used the other concentrations that it gave us unusable data. On Tuesday I had to make graphs of the data to present to the person from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab who is collaborating with Dr. Nguyen on this project. At that same time he gave us a sample of meteorite for us to find the optical constants using the ellipsometer. That was cool to actually touch (with gloves on) a meteorite. I have collected all the data that I will collect. I am leaving on vacation today and so my next weeks work is to finish the presentation. I am excited for the presentations and look forward to seeing the accomplishments of the other interns as well as presenting what I have done.

Week 7 July 10th - 16th

This week was full of collecting data. I was able to get the data, understand exactly what it means, and analyze it. Some of the data was good and able to be used and the bad data can’t be used. The bad data is when there is a combination of iron and silicon shown on the data it can’t really be used. This shows us though when the iron has been etched off too much of the silicon surface. By seeing this we can determine how fast the iron comes off. The problem we are facing is that the iron is coming off too quickly and so we had to lower the concentration of the phosphoric acid solution to make it not etch as fast. This week Dr. Nguyen presented the data to his collaborator from John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Everything is going well. We need more data to figure out what is happening to the iron specifically. The process of etching is what is causing a problem it causes the iron surface to become rough which isn’t good for us. We will see where we can get in another week.
The most exciting news of the week is I survived my first earthquake. Born and raised in Maryland I have never experienced an earthquake before. It was a little weird to feel my house shaking. I was staying at my house in Maryland and sleeping in the basement and above me I hear walking and then all of the sudden the house shakes and feels like vibrating at a resonance frequency (yes I did think that). Well on to next week.

Week 6 July 3rd - 9th

So this week was a short one well I guess by one day because it was Independence Day!! I do love the 4^th of July. It was a great experience to see the fireworks in DC. I have seen the fireworks down there twice before but for some reason I liked them better this year. For anyone who lives in Maryland and close to the city of Laurel should go every year to their fireworks show. It is on the Saturday closest to the 4^th every year and it is an amazing show as well. I have been every year since I can remember. That is pretty much all the extra fun I had this week besides work of course.
Work was very productive this week. I was just taking data with the ellipsometer. Just a little background if I have never mentioned it before. Every week at NIST there is a group meeting and the interns who work in the group present a little bit about their project and get more help from all the advisors and people in the group. It is really helpful because two brains are smarter than one. This week I presented some of my data that I had collected and analyzed and was excited about. Dr. Cheung one of the other advisors noticed in my data that something was wrong. I am trying to measure the index of refraction for this thin film of iron on silicon and I was measuring the index of refraction as less than1 which it should never be. The interesting thing is that I took the numbers off the ellipsometer and didn’t have to do any calculation so we think that we need to recalibrate the machine. I am grateful that the people here are wanting to help us with our work. I am learning a lot on how to think when analyzing data and where to look to see if my data make sense. My personal advisor Dr. Nguyen got back today from being out of town and we are working on fixing the problem. It wouldn’t be a physics problem if it worked on the first time. It is getting more exciting for me when I come to work because I am understanding more and more everyday and learning a lot in this experience. I am making good progress and excited to see what comes next.
Tonight I am eager to go to the Giants vs. Nationals game. I don’t really like either team but I love baseball. It will be a fun night with the other interns and SPS staff.

Week 5

This week one of my childhood dreams came true. Also, I made good progress on my project. My childhood dream was to work in a place where I had to wear a lot of different things to prevent me as a person contaminating anything around. I needed to go into a clean room to make a new sample. My advisor was out of town and so another man in my division Oleg who does a lot of work in the clean room took me over and showed me the place. It was the highlight of my week to see all the different things that go on in there and to see the process of how my samples are made. I had heard about sputtering but I didn’t really know how it all worked. My samples have a 200nm thick thin film of iron on silicon and so we use e-beam sputtering to put that thin of a layer on the silicon wafer. For those who don’t know what sputtering is it is a process where a metal or other substance being deposited on a target. In my case the iron is being deposited on the silicon target. The electron beam is shot at the iron and then the iron is excited and sputters onto the silicon. With the samples I use phosphoric acid to etch off a little bit of the iron. Earlier this week I found out that I cannot leave my sample in for longer than 30s or the whole layer of iron is off. This is good to know because then I can know what increments of time I etch the sample. I hope this week to make a lot more scans and try to find another acid to etch with to see if it will not etch it off so fast. This will allow us to get more scans because we can change the thickness of the sample at a smaller rate than we currently are. I am excited for what is coming and I can see good progress every week.
As far as me doing anything exciting this week, there were a couple of things. The barbeque at the Dylla’s was full of good food and good conversation. I was able to spend more time with the interns and meet more people that work at AIP. On Friday the other interns came to NIST and it was fun to see what else happens there besides the projects in my division. Also, it was nice to be able to show the interns where I work. I have high hopes for a good week ahead and will be waiting to fill everyone in on my progress.

Week 4

This week wasn’t filled with much. I really didn’t do a lot of work if anything. For the first few days I was trying to figure out how to solve for the optical reflection coefficient (R). That took a little bit of time searching different websites. I found multiple equations that were all derivatives of the each other. I kept getting wrong answers. It wasn’t until Thursday that we figured out that Microsoft Excel uses radians and not degrees and I had entered the angles in degrees and not in radians. I felt pretty blonde at that point but don’t we all at one point or another in our lives. Now back to earlier in the week, on Tuesday I was told that I was done working on the solar cell project because I had accomplished with what I needed to do by finding out the External Quantum Efficiency. Well it wasn’t until I got R correct that I was completely done. My advisor has been given money from NASA to work on a project. That is the new project that I am a part of. The new project is trying to optimize the index of refraction of a thin film of iron on top of silicon. I am going to change the thickness of the thin film by etching the pieces with phosphoric acid. The longer I leave the sample in the acid the thinner it will be. I have learned how to etch and use all the safety precautions. For the first time I have to wear a lab coat, protective eye wear, and protective gloves because I am dealing with an acid. To measure the thickness of the film I use an ellipsometer. I am excited for this project because I will have work to do that I can do by myself. I do not have to wait for my advisor to tell me everything to do. It will be a great experience and I am excited to be able to update everyone every week. That was this week at work.
As far as life in DC goes. I didn’t do much this week except go and see some memorials. I thought I had been to everything in DC as far as museums, monuments, and memorials. But, I hadn’t ever seen the FDR memorial. I think that is my favorite one now. Well he is my favorite president. It was fun to see and hang out with some of the other interns. I hope to do more next week to have a better update.