REU 2009 Blog: Kayla Crosbie

The Magnet Lab's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program draws students from all over the country to spend eight weeks learning from the leading researchers in their chosen field. This blog chronicles two undergraduates interested in science careers – one from a large university and another from a small college – as they learn their way around the lab and expand their research horizons.

The Bloggers

Kayla Crosbie is a rising sophomore at the University of Colorado at Boulder double-majoring in math and physics. Looking to expand on the things she is already learning at CU's prestigious physics department, she decided to summer in Tallahassee and is being mentored by scholar/scientist Alexey Suslov. Kayla is a bit of a Renaissance woman; her other interests include hobbies as diverse as snowboarding and literature.

Final Week: July 20-24

I ended up having a lot of things to do at the very last minute. I gave my final poster proof to Alexey and he realized that we forgot to put on the actual numbers of the elastic constants that we measured. I was like, "Do people really care about numbers?" But he was just like, "Oh, I can't believe I forgot this. This is really important." So I moved a few things around and we fit it in, and we had everything ready at literally the last minute. It was a little stressful but it worked out and now it's pretty funny.

Actually presenting the poster wasn't as intense as I thought it might be. People just come over and check things out and then maybe ask you to explain some of your work. I got to meet some other people who did things with similar techniques but different materials.

It was also neat to go to my friends' posters and see what they had been doing. You sort of hear about it but of course it's neater to see it all tied together.

I've learned a lot about how to write scientifically. Myself, I have always preferred scientific writing in a language anyone can understand because it's the best way to make the concepts accessible. And sometimes I feel like people use bigger words to cloak the fact that they don't know what they're doing.

But Alexey explained that a lot of scientific writing is almost sort of coded with specific words and phrases in specific types of research so that when people are getting information, they'll be able to look things up. He also explained the importance of using references and being referenced yourself to tie similar types of research together.

I think it's good to be able to do both things and be comfortable. I want to be a professor, so I want to be able to describe concepts without losing the people I'm talking to, but at the same time communicating your ideas to other scientists is important as well.

I've gotten to talk a little more with some theorists as well, and I've learned a little more about the divide between academic theorists and theorists who are more over on the experimental side.

I think two of the most important things I've learned this summer are learning to complete a project on a set schedule and – I guess I'd call it goal-oriented reading. Alexey would give me a huge book to read and I had to learn to get the information I needed out of it instead of going over every word and researching every concept like I would have before. There's just not enough time to do that in a normal day-to-day cycle. I've learned a lot about working efficiently and working smart. One thing is for sure – regular homework is going to seem really easy.

I also really liked learning a little bit more of how to separate my social life from my physics life. It's not like I'm a troll person or something, but I will find myself spaced out and thinking about physics even when I'm doing something fun. I liked the rule at lunch here that there was no talking about work. It really helped clear my head and enforce that separation a little bit. Life is more enjoyable when you're not always in that weird middle zone.

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Week 7: July 13-17

We did a frequency sweep on the lithium niobate/germanium sandwich sample and it was actually successful. The resonance frequencies had very sharp points, so that means the wave attenuation in the glue layer is not significant enough to make this experiment impossible. This is very exciting to me because Alexey and I from the beginning weren't sure if doing resonant ultrasound spectroscopy on a sandwich material would work at all. The resonances are still a little off from the theoretical values, but I think it is just because the glue layer isn't very smooth. I had a lot of trouble gluing the samples together. It doesn't sound too difficult to take two things and have glue in the middle but the glue Alexey likes is very gooey and it dries really fast. Then the samples have to be perfectly centered and parallel and lined up just the way the previous sandwich was, because the relative orientation will yield different resonance frequencies. I'm not great with tweezers and tiny objects either – the plates are about 2x2 millimeters – so I look very awkward but got a good sandwich … after three hours.

This glue is difficult to use, but every scientist has a favorite glue I suppose, and I can see some benefits to his. Some of the other glues that people in my lab use that work at cryogenic temperatures as well seem to dry a lot harder, and I would imagine that would attenuate the waves more significantly.

We are still having a hard time analyzing our lithium niobate sample. We tried to change some parameters, including the size, to get it to match the theoretical value, but it is not as precise as it should be. It might not have been a very pure sample to begin with, and the company that grew the crystal did not specify the elastic constants, so our parameters may be off. To see if it is the glue or the lithium niobate sample causing the discrepancy, we're going to try to test a sandwich of two germanium samples to determine the effect of the glue without the variables of the lithium niobate sample.

TThursday my friends in the lab and some others went out to lunch to celebrate (graduate research assistant) Ryan Stillwell's successful prelim proposal. That was the first time I went out to lunch during work, and it was very delicious and a great time to get away for a little bit. I'm going to miss that group, and I'm really glad that I got to know some other scientists in addition to the other REUs because they have taught me a lot. Plus they are a lot of fun; as a rule I think all scientists are quirky.

I only have a few more days to finish my poster. I need to fix up a lot of my writing – I've never written anything scientific before and you need to be very concise. On my first draft, Alexey said I need to write for an audience that understands the known information. I'm of course learning most of this subject for the first time, so I'm presenting it in kind of an instructive way but it's things they are already familiar with. He also said that some of my language was too … excited. He said he understood that for me my successful data was exciting, but for my audience, these tests on stainless steel and aluminum are already known information. I'm not really sure what to change yet, but it's the most hilarious criticism I've ever gotten. I just have to present information that is known in a way that shows why I did those tests, and then I present the new information, like my tests on samples that are plates instead of bulk material or my tests on sandwiches, in the appropriately exciting manner. Then I will sound more like an expert.

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Week 6: July 6-10

Basically I'm finishing up with analyzing my last sample of lithium niobate and we're having some trouble getting the experimental results to match the theoretical values. We've been running a lot of fitting programs and changing different parameters. We're still not entirely sure how the sample is cut in relation to the lattice structure of the crystal. The method we used for the aluminum and germanium samples was unsuccessful because the list of frequencies for each orientation are both very similar, so it isn't obvious which one matches the experimental data better. We have been using the X-ray machine to figure it out, making a Laue-gram, which is an X-ray diffraction pattern, and comparing that image to a Laue-gram of a lithium niobate sample with a known cut. But the X-ray machine has been having complications.

Once we're done figuring out the lithium niobate sample's best parameters – those that model the sample with the closest resonance frequencies to the experimental data – we can glue it to the germanium sample to make a sandwich. If we can't match the theoretical frequencies to the experiment data better for lithium niobate, we can change the experiment to analyzing a germanium silicon sandwich, which would be much simpler.

I have been working less independently this week because I know enough to run the program, but not enough to address the problems that come up. So I will watch Alexey as he makes small changes and explains it to me as he goes along.

While the program runs I have been working on my poster. I'm also working on visually representing the data that I've collected so far making graphs. It's not that difficult but the graphing program is new for me so it takes longer than I expected. I'll spend the longest time trying to make, for example, lines that show the theoretical resonances on my graph, and it will end up being this obscure little trick in the way the data table is set up. Presenting data in the right way is turning out to be more difficult than collecting it.

One of my friends in my lab, Ryan, is working on his Ph.D., and he has been preparing for his prelim presentation for the project he wants to embark upon. It's been pretty cool to learn about the process of getting a doctorate and looking forward to how nerve-wracking presentations can be. I get nervous easily, so that will definitely be me in a few years.

I did get to meet with a theoretical physicist like I've been wanting to do – Simon Capstick at FSU took some time to talk with me. I asked him about what he did on a day-to-day basis as a theoretical physicist. He talked about when he was back in grad school and about different fields I could work in.

More time than I expected is spent learning about the area studied, and doing math problems by hand. You have to be able to understand the physics completely before being able to generalize it into a computer program. I really like this because I thought doing math problems by hand was too old school, and everything is done with computers. He talked about the frustrating times for a theorist, too, but the idea of spending weeks pulling your hair out over one problem is really exciting to me. I never like asking for help on my homework because I really enjoy the process of exhausting every possible mental route of solving a problem. I'm also glad he gave me some helpful advice on math and programming classes I should take so I can be the most prepared for grad school.

His bottom line was that it's a really difficult – and a really great – profession, and to me it sounds like the best thing ever. I think it is my destiny to be a theorist.

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Week 5: June 29-July 3

This week I've mostly been analyzing my data, and I've started working on my poster. I feel good about getting started early – usually I procrastinate when it comes to writing.

I'm doing a lot of the same, but this week I'm using this 3D animation feature of the ANSYS analysis program. It shows how the sample oscillates at different resonant frequencies. We had two lists of frequencies for the same lithium niobate sample, one analyzed with the piezoelectric constants and one without. Looking at the list of frequencies, it appears that there is an extra resonance frequency in one list, or it could just be a coincidental number pattern. Since the sample oscillates uniquely at each resonance, I can find similar modes by observing the animation. Since I had to go through and compare 40 modes, I took notes on how the block moved, writing down which corner bent or edge twisted. But sometimes it was too complicated to break it down, so I would just write something like, "reminds me of a hippy dancing."

I've also been doing a lot data fitting with the ANSYS program. It takes a second to input the text file, but running the program can take a few hours, so I sometimes run out of tasks I can do without my computer.

I feel like my project is going along really well. I'm going to be doing the sandwich sample after this, and then I'll be finished.

A couple of days ago my friends from my lab made a deal with me that I could play with some liquid nitrogen if I baked them brownies. I didn't know you could hold it in your bare hands, but it forms an insulating layer of gas between you and the liquid. So it feels cold but not wet; instead it's almost fluffy. We supercooled a penny and I smashed it with a hammer. It's a pretty good souvenir.

I was a little frustrated with the lack of math, but I'm getting over it. This has definitely helped me see that I want to be a theoretical physicist, but I'm still going to be able to take away a lot of valuable experience and lab knowledge. A lot of the analysis I've been doing would be somewhat like being a theorist for the experimentalist's data. I have been enjoying this week more, compared to some of the more technical work I had been doing so far.

I've been learning little, new things every day from Alexey, too. Next week I'm going to go talk with one of the theoretical physicists at FSU and learn what sort of work a theorist does.

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Week 4: June 22-26

I am working on my own now and have mostly finished learning new information; I'm also about to get to work on my main project with the two glued samples.

I did learn a new method of determining how a crystal sample is cut just by doing a fitting program on the computer and changing which dimensions are X,Y and Z.

I will admit that I don't think I really enjoy being an experimental physicist. I liked it when I was learning new things, but once I've learned everything it seems very technical – that's just how experimental physics is. I realized that I haven't gotten to do any math since I've gotten here. I was asking around if this is what it's like for all experimental physics and people are saying yes, the computer does all the math. I'm starting to think that maybe I want to be a theoretical physicist instead, but I'm still enjoying being here. I just know I won't enjoy it as a career.

Thursdays are great because all the REUs, Jose and some Tallahassee people meet at the local bike shop, and we all go on bike rides together. The rides are pretty intense but they are a lot of fun. I wasn't really expecting a narrow trail ride over logs and roots – a little terrifying at first. I have a nice scrape from crashing, but I have been getting the hang of it. Definitely not ready for the jumps and technical trails yet though. There's a beginner's ride but don't be fooled by that name – the first one was 13 miles. Most have been easier, but it was fantastic.

I'm noticing the same thing here as I do in school. I look around in my physics classes and there will be about three other women. I've only taken lower division physics classes, but in two years or so even they might be gone because they're astronomy or geochemistry majors, or people on the K-12 teaching track that only need those basic physics courses. I'm starting to feel like in a year I'm going to be the only one.

Other than my high school teacher Mrs. Bradford, I've never had a female physics instructor at any level. I feel like it's a newer thing that women are engaging more in the hard sciences, so the only women older than me I've seen in my field are the teaching assistants who are still in grad school.

If I were to guess why, I think some of it is that it seems intimidating because there aren't any females in the first place, so women think it's not for them. It's one of those job fields that needs a Ph.D., which will take six or seven years, and it's a level of commitment that requires a lot of changes to the traditional path a woman might expect to take. Even getting a Master's degree is not enough for most physics careers, unless you take the engineering physics route. This is what really made me step back and reconsider how much I really like physics. But I think I will be able to be in school until I'm 30, or however long it takes me, because I enjoy operating at a sometimes stressful intensity.

I guess I have always liked doing things that guys like to do – for example I really like to skateboard. I like sort of breaking the mold.

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Week 3: June 15-19

This week I learned how to use the X-ray machine – it's what I use to orient my crystal the way it needs to be cut. It's so cool There is an X-ray beam that strikes the crystal surface, and then you have this little remote control to adjust or rotate the crystal precisely. Then on the computer there is software that makes a lauegram, which is the X-ray diffraction pattern, which looks like static with some dots when it is read in real time. Then the image collected over a set time can be used to analyze the lattice structure of my crystal. It's a fun machine to use.

This week I did more of the same but I also got the opportunity to work some on my own. I really got some opportunities for some of my own problem solving with figuring out the set-up for cutting my crystal. Alexey explained some of the problems that will come up, and I had to draw a picture and figure out how I wanted to cut it. I liked being able to think of new methods and learn about the problems scientists face when dealing with crystals, since keeping the structure in tact is crucial for good measurements.

Also I got to investigate why the lattice parameters for one of my samples was given in hexagonal as opposed to trigonal coordinates, which is the crystal structure of the lithium niobate. Alexey sent me on an Internet quest to figure this out, and it was very difficult because I would have to read through a lot of content that was way over my head in terms of vocabulary specific to this field of physics.

I spent the day looking this up and learning more about crystals while I was at it. I'm not very good at skimming, so I couldn't help but get sidetracked with fairly unrelated articles about crystal properties that intrigued me. It was kind of one of the first times that I was curious about what I was doing and not just trying to keep up absorbing all this new information. It was cool to get to investigate something that didn't make sense, instead of just asking why. Also it's a basic science skill to be able to resolve why information that I look up on, for example, lattice parameters doesn't seem correct, or if information differs between sources.

I've been really happy with the level of work I've been getting to do. I feel like it's pretty difficult, but then it feels easy once I start putting what I read about into action in the lab and there's immediately something new to learn.

This week's lesson learned: Unlike in college, you can't go to sleep at 2 in the morning and then go to work. When you fall asleep in lecture it's OK. But when you fall asleep when someone's talking right to you, it's a little awkward. I still can't believe I did that. At about 3 p.m. I'm pretty sleepy, and around then Alexey was explaining something to me. I kept not realizing that my eyes were closing and one of the times I opened my eyes he was suddenly smiling but kept talking, and so I'm pretty sure he noticed.

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Week 2: June 8-12

Pretty much this week I've been learning about crystals. I get to cut my samples with a wire saw to a certain dimension and clean them. Then I measure the density and the resonance frequencies. I just place the sample between these two transducers connected to a frequency generator that vibrates the sample. Then the oscillations are detected by the other transducer, and I use this software, LabVIEW, to sweep through a range of frequencies and find the resonances, which are peaks on the graph. Then using another software I can run a mathematical analysis to find elastic constants of my material.

I've also learned how to use a modeling program called ANSYS. It kind of works backwards from the other process. It will give me a 3D model of my crystal and then tell me what my resonance frequency should be from the information I give it, like the elastic constants, density and piezoelectric constants. It does another cool thing too: You can put in the frequencies and it will visually show you exactly how it vibrates at those frequencies. Sometimes it bends vertically, and sometimes it twists.

Just this past couple of days I've gotten to do a little of the work on my own from start to finish. I've also been learning about piezoelectricity, so I've been spending some time in the lab by myself reading books.

The crystals I'm using are basically little tiny cubes or plates that are one to two millimeters in length. As opposed to a material that's isotropic (which means it's the same in all directions, say something like stainless steel), this one has a structure within it – a signature pattern in the way that the atoms are oriented. One really hard thing is that you have to be super careful with them because even small vibrations will partially destroy the structure and make my measurements less accurate. I have to measure the length, width and height with a micrometer and the mass to find the density. I have these little tweezers and I'm trying not to let my hand shake and I move it around and of course trying not to drop it and break it completely. But I just have to relax, maybe listen to Pandora, and not think about it, like when I paint. Then it's easy to keep my hand still. The crystal samples look just like a normal metal or some like glass – it's not like a geode slice, which is what I imagine when I think of a crystal formations.

I think so far the lab has been about what I expected – I am using a computer a lot, but I also get to use some machinery and work with my hands about equally.

We have had some time to get around Tallahassee a little more. I've been out to some restaurants and to church and we went bowling on campus, which was a lot of fun. And Waffle House, open at three in the morning, is also a good thing. We also checked out a farmer's market and picked up some fruits and vegetables, and there was some jazz music going on.

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Week 1: June 1-5

I knew when I was a junior in high school that I wanted to be a physicist for sure. I had liked science for a while, but physics especially was the most interesting conceptually for me. Double-majoring in math seemed like a good idea if I decide to be a theoretical physicist, but I also just really love math. When I bought my linear algebra book for last semester and saw all of the math books, it was a moment when I wanted to stop time to read them all.

Coming to the Magnet Lab is something I've been really excited about since I was told I got the job. I'm into electromagnetism and cryogens, and that interest in cryogens is part of the reason I decided to go to CU, where a professor is a Nobel laureate in that field, so it made sense to expand on it this summer. I really do get kind of depressed when it's summertime and there's no physics homework to do. I'd just end up going to the library and checking out some books. I was just waiting for June, to get to Florida.

The Magnet Lab is fantastic. In some ways the lab has been a lot like what I expected – this huge place with a ton of lab equipment and a ton of people from different fields. I'm in a little apartment-style dorm that is shared with the seven students from out of state, so I am getting to know all of them really well.

The magnets didn't really look like what I had imagined. I had never seen one before. I guess I thought they would look more like, I don't know, a satellite dish sort of thing where you could walk on top of it or get more inside it, with a big central core. During our safety test, it had something about not spending too much time on top of the magnet, so my imagination went from there. But they meant the platform where you can stand on the top. The magnets are more like a big metal tube, which makes sense if I had thought about how a regular electromagnet looks.

I'm hoping spending the summer out here will help me narrow my field of interest a little bit. I don't know if I want to go the experimental physics route or the theoretical physics route. I've taken physics classes, but it's nothing like this. So for me this is kind of a way to explore what sort of a job I would like to have some day.

While I'm here, I'm going to be doing resonant ultrasound spectroscopy and I'm going to learn a lot about crystals as well. I'll also get to learn how to do computer analysis and modeling.

Even in this first week it's amazing how much I've learned and seen already. My mentor is really knowledgeable and he has taken the time to teach me things outside our research focus. Almost everything I'm doing is outside of the knowledge I have from physics classes I have taken so far, but my mentor has given me books and articles to read and has taken time to answer my questions. I'm not in over my head, even though I thought I would be, but this week has been challenging.

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For more information about the MagLab's REU program contact Jose Sanchez at sanchez@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 645-0033.