Outstanding event; you all made great posters and presentations!

All of your students are really lucky to have you as their teacher, so congratulations!

Tomorrow is the last day of our summer part of our RET experience.  I would like to thank all the people involved in this phenomenal experience. I’m feeling overloaded with ideas for projects to do, and I can’t wait to see your scientific posters tomorrow.

Sleep well, you deserve it.

“There is no way around the hard work. Embrace it.” ~ Roger Federer

This week the lab has been under maintenance routines. I learned how to transfer the liquid helium from the Dewar to the probe tank of the Magnetic Properties Measurement System.

Also, how to load a resistivity sample puck, Macy explained the maintenance routine for the glove box and how to change a filter.

Finally, I witness how to take apart the X-ray diffractometer. Cool  eh! I remember taking everything apart when I was a child. Hopefully, I will be able to obtain my data before Monday, since I’m still waiting to analyze a a sample.

      It has been a busy time. On one hand; I have been preparing more pellets of my superconductor: two grams at a time. As I previously explained, it takes three to four days the synthesis. Meanwhile, I was able to test the magnetic field using the Magnetic Property Measurement System SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) magnetometer, or Roger Taylor; as it was christened in the lab.

        On the other hand, I made a prototype of a Möbius track for my demo. However, it didn’t work; the Neodymium magnets need to be N-52; and I only have N-42 (It means the puling force rating, and of course the price tag too). So, I modified my design for an oval track.

      Another learning experience this week was the protocol for making an oval steel track at Rice. I meet Eli at the Rice’s metal shop; it resembles a lot my father’s shop when I was a child. He was very helpful and happens to be Mexican too. Hopefully while the superconductor synthesis is complete by Monday; I will be assembling everything and giving the final touches to my demo.

The making of a superconductor will take time to allow the bonding of the materials.  Our materials are  Yttrium Oxide, Cooper Oxide, and Barium Carbonate. We weighted and grinded the materials to obtain an homogenous mixture.   After grinding the materials, we compacted them in 10mm pellets  using a press. Once the pellets were pressed; we heated the pellets using a tube furnace. For that, I used Olympus, the nickname of the tube furnace. It may look simple; however it had to be programmed using a ramp. The first 4 hours the temperature would rise from room temperature to 900ºC, then maintain the temperature at 900ºC for 12hours, to finally descend to room temperature in 8 hours; all the time the tube  receives oxygen from a tank to allow the bonding, since the materials would release CO₂ while being heated inside the tube.

The objective is to go from:

                                     Y₂O₃ + 6CuO + 4BaCO₃  → 2YBa₂Cu₃O₇ + 4CO₂

After the process, we XRD the material again, the process needs to be repeated until the materials are completely bonded.  The material changed the color from gray to green during the first process; now it looks almost black/dark gray.

Today, we are going to analyze it again in the XRD to check the diffraction pattern.

Using the X-Ray Diffractometer as the first step to create my superconductor. I learned that all the materials have a fingerprint. When we send X-Rays to the crystal structure of the material, the wave length bounces from the crystal structure showing a unique pattern.

We compared them with more samples already made to verify our material.