Wrinkling, X-Rays and Dr. Russell

Started off the day setting up threes slides. One was set up for X-ray reflectivity. We set up the X'Pert Pro. Since it takes 1.5 hours, we left it running and went to Hasbrouck to do the wrinkling. We are getting more proficient at the wrinkling procedure. We are becoming faster at adding the 0.2 microliter incremental amounts and at taking the pictures of the film and of the wrinkles. Each one of us did two films with the given amounts of water and the pictures at each point and transferred the pictures to the computer. We will analyze the pictures later.

Met with Dr. Russell today. We discussed what we have done over the last two weeks. We mentioned all the instruments we have been trained on, the spin coating procedure and the wrinkling procedure. He talked about how the x-ray reflectivity worked and related it to the colors seen on the surface of the bubble, same as an oil slick on water. They both show colors based on constructive interference, destructive interference and index of refraction which can be used to determine the thickness of the "film."

We went to look at the data from the X'Pert. The data looked good once it was set to a logarithmic scale. It showed the peaks and the troughs that we needed in order to calculate the thickness of our film.

We got the necessary data from the troughs and calculated, using Excel, the thickness of the film. It came out to 98.133 nm, which is a bit thicker than we should have gotten.

We spin coated two more slides and took them to Hasbrouck to do the wrinkling on them. We have lots of pictures so we will need to start analyzing them soon. For now, we want to make sure we can do the procedures and that we do them well. Practice, Practice, Practice. :-)