this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
22 points (100.0% liked)

Science

12955 readers
144 users here now

Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
Gaywallet@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
22
What field do you work in? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by realChem@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org
89 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I've been curious how many working researchers we've got in this community, and what you all do!

If you're working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I'm upset that "amateur" has a negative connotation, it shouldn't.)

I'm currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I've been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AcrossTheDrift@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm a postdoc, working on laser-plasma/ interactions and electron accelerators. My PhD work was on ultrafast electron diffraction.

[–] realChem@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ultrafast electron diffraction

That's pretty fascinating stuff! I know a lot about electron diffraction in general (in the context of TEM/STEM/4D-STEM), but not ultrafast. What kind of processes were you studying with that method?

[–] AcrossTheDrift@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Our beamline is still very new (my main focus was actually on building/commissioning it), so for now, we've just been looking at relatively simple processes like the Debye-Waller effect, where the diffraction spots become weaker as the temperature rises.

The ultrafast capability comes from the electron beam having a sub-picosecond duration, which essentially corresponds to the shutter speed of a camera. By varying the delay between a pump laser and the electron probe and observing the change in intensity of the diffraction spots, we can figure out how the heat deposited by the laser diffuses through the sample, and make a "molecular movie" of this process. It's in the same spirit as other pump-probe experiments, like what @Salamander does.