Saida Holder Chemistry at the University of Houston Week 6

broken slide from the first tube furnace

This week was my last week at the University of Houston. While I feel like my research was cut rather short, I learned a great amount in such a short time span, and if given the opportunity, I would definitely do it again! This week flew by, and I attempted to get as much done as I possibly could, but even then, I was not able to complete everything I thought I could.

Monday, I began working on my procedure for making ITO films, and finishing up a few things with the tube furnace so I would be ready to bake the films later in the day. Once the tube furnace was ready, I inserted two slides in, just in case anything went wrong. Ying-Ming helped me with the settings for this tube furnace, since it was incredibly confusing to work. The furnace was incredibly fast at heating, it reached 600°C in nearly 5 minutes! Once reaching the temperature, I set a timer for 30 minutes, and watched the temperature to make sure it stayed reasonably around 600°C. Once I was finished, I let the furnace cool for a while, not realizing that since I was using quartz, I could have just opened the furnace to let it cool. Once it reached a reasonable temperature, I opened it and saw that one of the substrates had actually shattered. I gathered the other substrate, and the pieces of the broken one. Before leaving that day, I analyzed the films using the UV/Vis machine, to see any differences between our previous films.

Tuesday, as soon as I got there, I wanted to bake some more films so I could hopefully get more dips before having to clean up everything for when I eventually departed. While I was attempting to seal the tube back up with our very delicate setup, I ended up cracking the quartz tube

really interesting closeup of one of the films, I thought it looked like mountains!

in the process. It was now unusable until that cracked got fixed. I told Ying-Ming, who had been helping me with the tube furnace, and he suggested that I use his instead. He taught me how to set it up, and how to control the flow of Nitrogen so I was able to bake my films

second tube furnace!

effectively. The only downside to using this furnace, was the incredibly slow heating time. Nonetheless, I was able to set everything up, and I baked a few more films to be dipped again. I analyzed these films as well before leaving, and they showed different spectrums than the ones fired in the previous furnace.

Wednesday I baked the rest of the single dip slides that I had, and worked on the rest of my procedure. Once I had baked the rest of the single dipping slides, I dipped a few second dip ones in hopes that I could have them fired before we had to leave, and I was hopeful to get even another dip done. I was not able to bake these this day, but I left them for the next day in hopes that I could finish quickly. However, I did analyze them under a microscope to see if I could see any strange things on the film. I ended up finishing my procedure for ITO films by the end of the day.

Thursday and Friday were spent finishing the last of the dips, and baking them. Thursday was rather uneventful, but I finished up the last things I could with my films, and added some final touches to my procedure. Friday, we began cleaning our messes up and packing away several things we had been using. It was bittersweet leaving, but I was glad that I had such an amazing time at this internship! I just wished I could have had more time, so I could continue with my experiments in hopes of progress. Sadly, we were not able to return to the lab on Saturday, since we had to fly out at 12pm

Saturday was spent navigating the airport with just Tiffany and I. It was such a pain, and my bag just happened to be overweight. I said goodbye to those last $100 I had left due to that. Tiffany and I were incredibly happy to be back home with all the information we had learned. I even felt as if I am a new person after this! I feel so much more independent, and I have a lot more confidence in my abilities than I did before attending this internship. This made me incredibly excited for college, and I cannot wait to go in just a year! I am so grateful that I was able to have this opportunity, and if I could do it again, I definitely would! The people I worked with and met really showed me a side of schooling that I hadn’t seen previously. I thank everyone that helped me gain this internship, and everyone that I worked with during this internship. In such a short time, I was able to learn so much thanks to the people around me.