Journeys for Knowledge

Indeed it has been some time since my last post, and quite a bit has happened. In the period between then and now, I’ve returned home, started a new project, and begun to contemplate my future thesis. So let’s dive in shall we?

My three week visit home will be the only time I return to the US this entire year. The gravity of that fact did not hit me until I was about to leave. While at home I fell back into my old routine of laziness and general indulgence, but when it came time to say goodbye to my friends and family, the phrase “See you later” truly meant later in life, with the real possibility of there being years in between. Coming home is like re-calibrating a tool, it’s only when you reset to zero do you realize just how much you’ve changed. I’m been required to make a home for myself in Japan, and I truly do enjoy it, but the Bay Area will always be the reference by which I measure myself.

Of course I would not disappear for three weeks from OIST without finishing my previous project, and despite my reservations, my genetics professor was quite pleased with my results. With that wrapped up, I started a new project in a solar cell lab. They aspire to design new cheaper solar cells based on specially designed crystals. Which most people in the unit focus on the device side of this problem, I was tasked with investigating the crystal’s material properties. Too often in applied science research focus on the how, but never stop to consider the why. This is partly why I enjoy physics so much, because we cannot move forward without truly understanding the mechanism behind what we observe. Since my new professor understands this, he has given me free reign to design what ever experiments I deem fit, a level of freedom I have not enjoyed since Berkeley. Sure enough, I’m having a wonderful time in lab, going into the clean room creating real films and studying them with x-rays and sensitive microscopes. After today’s set of experiments, I will post a more detailed walk through my routine.

Of course this lab is not where I will ultimately end up, for that place has already been taken by my first rotation unit. Although I do not have a set project yet, the professor has said I can work whatever instrument I want, and he will assist me. He has even allowed me to attend a workshop on accelerator design, despite losing personal interest in them after 20 years in the field. In the coming months I will work to determine a proper thesis topic, so I can get started as soon as my current rotation ends. PhD life is always fraught with delays, so it would be nice to preempt these pitfalls for once.