Back to Basics

After finishing my paper work and online courses, I was finally able to visit the LPL. Currently, I am working very closely to Dr. Wallace. On Tuesday, the first day I visited the lab, Dr. Wallace set me up on a computer and I started computer tutorials for a software called Orientation Imaging Microscopy Analysis, or OIM Analysis (Photos are in the Gallery tab of my webisite). These tutorials would take up all of my time at the lab on Tuesday and most of it on Thursday. Immediately after working on the tutorials, I noticed that I need to quickly read up and research how to use Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) and Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD). Although I could make my way through the tutorials, it was very clear that it was made for more experienced users. I could follow along the instructions and manage to get the same results as the tutorial, however, why I did something, or what it presented me was unclear.

With my time at the LPL and working on the OIM Analysis tutorials, I supplement them by reading books suggested by Dr. Wallace. Currently I am reading three books, one on Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM), one on Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD), and the last one on Focused Ion Beams (FIB). Although everything I have learned so far has seemed foreign, Dr. Wallace assures me that this project is like a web. While learning new things, I will be able to fill out new parts of that web and eventually work my way to truly understanding the concepts I am working with.

Luckily, on Thursday, I met a postgraduate named Dr. Prajkta Mane. She works with Dr. Zega at the LPL, but on Thursday, she was using the machinery in the room I was in. I was lucky enough to be able to observe her work. She was observing a sample of meteorite using the SEM we had in the lab room. Although I have not been trained in using the machinery, it was an unique experience watching her prepare the sample, loading it into the SEM, and looking at the results on the four monitors we have linked up to the SEM. Even though I am only observing at the moment, somewhere in the time frame of my project, I do plan to learn how to prepare a sample and analyze it for simple characteristics, but first I must learn the basics.