This past Wednesday I met with Ryan to try and get some images of some tubes that he and Jim had made. We did a lot of searching for them but most of the grids were blown out by the laser or some other reason. I did some reading about using the TEM before we met and I learned some of the theory behind the microscope and some good advice about how to align and adjust the lenses. We practiced aligning the beam and I am glad we did as the resolution was much better than the last time we used the machine. The sample did not shift across the screen when changing the magnification, which I now know to be caused by a misaligned beam, which we had previously.Our improved technique made investigating interesting areas much faster and easier, although there is still room for improvement.
Ryan and I also discussed replicating the work of others. We can use some of the samples that he has already made to work on characterizing the particles. Ryan will teach me how to use the sputtering system so that I will be able to make some of the alternating thin film samples to test once we are comfortable with making and characterizing some pure metal samples.
