The first week of my internship with Professor Baldelli at the University of Houston has been so much fun. The first couple of days that me and the other students from Pinhead got here were to get settled in and introduced to all the unfamiliar faces and places. Many students from Texas take part in this same internship under a different program, Welch scholars, to study chemistry with a professor in their lab. I am working in Baldelli’s lab, using one of their many machines, the evaporator, to create metal films among different substrates to study their molecular structure.
The evaporator
In the beginning of the week, we started off by listening to multiple presentations done by chemistry professors, pitching their lab work to us and seeing if anybody has any interest in doing an internship. Since I am doing it through Pinhead, I get to work with Professor Baldelli, in his lab located in the SERC building. I am working with a grad student in the lab named Zain, who is teaching me how to use the evaporator machine. He demonstrated by making a copper film on a glass substrate, which is what he personally works with. For my projects during my internship, I will be working on printing nano grids of polymers onto glass with silver. This process starts with the lining (grid) of PVP (a polymer) onto glass and coating it with a solution of silver ions to line the grid, which once placed in a sodium citrate solution will begin to convert into solid silver. This process creates the silver linings as microscopic conductors that can allow electricity to flow. The other project I will be working on involves the evaporator. This machine is capable of heating metals to the point where they evaporate and their molecules move to their surroundings in the chamber. The goal is to get a certain substrate coated in the metal to create a monolayer (“film”) of the metal. the thickness of the film is measured and calculated based on the rate of heat induced onto the metal. For my project, in relation to this process, I will be creating thin gold films on a vinyl substrate in the evaporator to explore
SERC (Science and Engineering Research Center)
the properties of alkanethiol SAMs (self assembled monolayers) hydrophobic (menthyl) and hydrophilic (carboxylic acid) tails. When the gold substrate, made from the evaporator, is placed into a alkanethiol concentration, the “head” group (R-SH) binds with the surface and forms a monolayer and leaves the tails to stick out. Depending on the alkanethiol solution, the tail it has will effect its ability to absorb water, which can be annotated by measuring the contact angle of a droplet placed on the surface with the tails. This provides information about use of these SAMs to prevent things like surface degradation or contamination. Most of the experiments done with the metal films will be viewed using the Raman spectrometer, which is what another girl (Maria) is working on in Baldelli’s lab.
All in all, this week has been filled with not just scientific learnings, but also meeting new people, exploring the campus, and experiencing doing work independently. I have made lots of new friends with the people in this program, and have tried lots of new foods! This week, I have spent my days during the week in the laboratory researching and reading about my projects, and working with my mentor (grad student) Zain who has helped me learn all the steps involved in using the evaporator safe and effectively. Outside of the lab, I spend my time hanging out with my dorm mates, going on runs, and getting food on campus. I plan to try out the rec. center at the university, but so far I have done walks and runs with my roommates Faye, Riley, and Ava (the four of us in the cover image). The RA’s for the program are super great and provided a fun game night for us on Saturday, which was a great experience to get closer to all the other students!
Me and 1 of my roommates Faye!
I’m glad you are learning so much and getting to experience new things and make some friends.