Friday, June 29, 2018
By:
What a week.
I know, I know. You all want to here about this week. You've already read all about last week, but I just need to share one more thing that happened last week-- something I FORGOT last week. Last Thursday, SPS treated us to an amazing dinner. We took a cruise out onto the river and had a very fancy dinner. Apparently they did bowling before, but found a cruise/dinner to be cheaper... I don't know who got the prices for bowling, but I'm not complaining! Anyways, on this very day Michael Welter turned 21 so of course he got a drink. His choice? Red wine. Now, what do you think this man does with his first legal drink? You just have to look at the picture (See attached).
Okay! Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about this week! Coach Bruffles will be happy to hear that I finally found a pool to swim at and a super cool team to swim with (The GW swim team). I'm pretty out of [swimming] shape and they're Division 1, so every morning they kick my a**!
This week at work was also quite busy. We nearly finished the fan-out boards, the only thing we have left is to cut the boards and deposit indium onto the board so we can attach it to the source. We also got some good data from test 0. We actually had what they call a "super emitter" on the array. While this seems like it is a good thing, what we really want is uniform CNT's to make testing easier. This CNT emitted a ton of current when we applied a voltage to it, so we ran test 0 on all of the CNT's except the super emitter, then lowered our voltage and ran another test that included the super emitter. That test will be running over the weekend.
Although I prepared source 2 for test 1, the equipment was not ready for us to run the test. Test 1 is an attempt at creating an electron beam by applying large voltages to the boards and has to be done in a chamber under vacuum. The problem last time they ran this test, was:
1. They couldn't get a steady beam, and
2. A lot of the electronics had arcing and melting all over the board.
*By the way arcing is like lightning between electronics*
We think the arcing may have occured between the Microchannel plate (MCP)- our detector which is partially encapsulated by stainless steel. We made a change to the set up of test 1 by extending the distance between the source and the MCP. We tried to start the test, but when we ramped up the voltage the pressure within the chamber increased and would not go down. We cleaned all of the equipment with a volatile solvent, and started to evacuate the chamber. By this point it was already late in the day, and the chamber takes atleast 2 hours to get down to the vacuum we need it at. Next week we will heat the camber while it's under vacuum. Hopefully that will be just what we need to get this test going.
I'll leave ya'll with a fun story about Michael and I's dysfunctional lives before I go. So, this morning I went to swim, BUT LEFT MY KEY! I text my roommates asking them to leave the door open... Jesus has already left for the gym, Nathan is still sleeping, and Michael thinks I'm talking about letting me in later tonight (which I didn't realize until I got back and he had already left). So I come back to a locked door calling and texting Michael, who I think is still there. 20 minutes of knocking later, Nathan wakes up and lets me in (THANK GOD!). Michael's texting me asking if Nathan is still there, and I'm just confused thinking he didn't know I got in the apartment. It's not until I am at the metro station that Michael calls me telling me he needs in the building because HE FORGOT HIS KEYS! So I run back, give him my keys, run to catch the metro. Once I get off, I run to catch my bus, see it drive away and run after it. They didn't see me... So this morning I had to take an Uber to work :(
Collin Flynn