Summer in Paris

Since I am going to do be in Paris for nine weeks this summer, I thought that it would be fun to make a blog where I can document my summer. I am not sure what is going to happen with this blog, but I hope to discuss my thoughts about my research project and my experiences traveling.

This summer, I am participating in the Optics in the City of Light REU program through University of Michigan.  (see http://web.me.com/smysmy21/IREU/Home.html). All I can say for now is that I am excited to meet everybody. From what little I can see, I think that I will be in good company. 

My research project is related to: "creating optical components for attosecond pulses in the XUV spectral range". To explain a bit about what this means, you could imagine turning on a laser for one second. that would be a one second pulse. My summer research concerns pulses that are on the order of 10^-18 seconds! 

At first, I thought that this area would be useless, but it turns out that pulses on this time scale theoretically have the ability to look at the dynamics of valence electrons in molecules. (For instance, one source suggested that in a certain biomolecule, the time that it would take an electron to move around the molecule is around 10^-16 seconds.)

Generating such pulses is challenging. There are a number of ways that researchers are trying, but one of the main ones involves shooting a high intensity laser at a gas (ex. Ar, Ne). Apparently, this can produce pulses that are very short. But the drawback is that these pulses have wavelengths such that most mirrors have trouble reflecting them.

Therefore, there is a lot of work going into developing optical components such as mirrors that are able to control these light pulses. The approach that I will be using involves creating layers of different substances and using a computer to optimize the mirror.

When I first attempted to read the papers that my research mentor sent me, I was very confused because there were so many terms that I did not know. Now I am in the process of rereading the papers over again and wikipedia-ing every word that I have not seen. The material is starting to make more sense now and I look forward to actually understanding the details of this research in the subsequent weeks. 

I like to make goals so here are some (optimistic) goals for my summer:

1. be responsible with my research.

2. get to know some of the other people in the program well

3. sleep well

4. see the big tourist attractions in Paris (Louvre, Eiffel Tower, art museums), visit my uncle in Grenoble, visit a friend in Germany, eat good french food  (croissants!) 

5. improve my french  (possibly blog some in french)

Tomorrow, I am traveling to Michigan and meeting the other people in this research program. I'm excited!