The First Experience Working in a Clean Room

This year I was granted with an opportunity to study for my Master degree in Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. My master programme is called MSc Smart Systems Integration.
Last week I had an opportunity of laboratory work at a clean room. I was very excited about it as it was my first time I entered the clean room.
The lab was about photolithography. We were given a glass wafer coated with a Ti thin layer and we had to fabricate a microstructure test pattern from SU -8 photoresist.
Now finally I had a chance to actually do myself the photoresist spin coating, masking, baking and developing. Well, I am quite happy about it!!!

Spin coating is not that hard process. SU-8 is quite viscous and it is hard to get it out from the pipette and drop it onto the centre of the glass wafer. But I mastered this step  quite easily.

After the SU-8 spread uniformly on glass wafer, I baked it at 65 C and 95 C.
The mask was just placed in contact with the glass wafer and with the help of UV light, I obtained a pattern on the wafer.

The development with the EC solvent and isoproponol was also quite easy. I just had to add the solvents onto the wafer and to wait until I got a structure.

I very enjoyed the whole process. I also found it quite easy.
I am happy that I could finally do the photolithography and not just listen to lectures about what photolithography is!

Leadership Talk

I was waiting for that Leadership talk so much today. That talk was given by the first president of MMU Prof. Ghauth Jasmon. I think all people should attend this kind of talks, because you can see  successful people and learn from them a lot!!!

What i gained today:

No words "Failure" in the vocabulary, this is really true, we never should think that we could fail at the end, stay positive whenever happens with you.

"Never think that you are okay". This statement is always following me, because i keep telling it myself everyday. And to hear the same phrase from such a great person today was really sweet. You should never be satisfied with acheivements, because once you are, you stop moving forward and then you are getting behind of others. That`s why, one should always keep improving!!!! Never stop!

"Never think impossible cannot happen".  Never think that something is impossible and you cant reach it, what you think is impossible can really come true... it depends on you...

"The secret of survivour is To Be Crazy!!!"
Yes, CRAZY!!! Be iniciative! Have a lot of ideas! Beacuse if you keep doing the same thing, you will be out of business.

" The secret of a good leader - pushing and pushing!" You should push your collegues, you should push yourself towards the goal!!!!!!!!!!!

6 Essential Personal Qualities To A Success:
1. Vision + ideas 
(Ideas must keep coming to your head, you always should think what to do next!! See far beyond to be the first,
Create new challenges, There is no retirement/tiredness in your vocabulary!!)

2. Hardwork 
(Be hardworking!! Some examples, Korea is the most hardworking country, then goes Japan,
japanese people working from 6am and  untill 10 pm
you must do your work untill you get it! Keep on and Strive for it!)

3. Determination
(You should determine who you are, and who you want to be!)

4. Courage +Risk taking
(The Higher your risk=the  higher you income, you should never be afraid to take decisions for life )

5. Ethical/professional
(Whatever you do, make sure there is no personal interest in it.
You should teach yourself to be ethical which is hard, keep a person who is ethical around you, learn from him/her
Exercise ethical conduct and remember truth always comes out!)

6. Care for others
(world is getting more critical, more toxic, polluted and lack of resources. We must care whatever we do and see the impacts of it!)

People want to see your performance,achievements, results. They dont care about the excuses.
When you are the performer, you will be seen, what you say is heard, what you do is quoted.
Ultimately, you will become an example to follow, you will establish yourself in leadership role.
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

To get anything done, give the job to the busiest person. The person who doesnt do anything, let him go.

The best leader who surrounds himself with outstanding people. 
Leaders see every situation in life as opportunities. Every time is good time

Summer School Silicon Photonics 2014

Last week I was lucky to go to summer school held at University of Ghent, Belgium. I enjoyed it very much!
Ghent is a really beautiful city. I like it so much, especially the river with lots of boats around with tourists. The summer school was intensive. There were many classes from morning till evening. 
All days I was waiting for Thomas Krauss presentation and it was worth it. He is a really good man who can deliver his speech so well.
It was just lots of new things and I think photknics is not that easy. Learn learn and learn. ...

http://plat4m-fp7.eu/spsummerschool/

Here is me with my poster:

Schrödinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat

Well, currently I am studying quantum mechanics which is quite challenging! And I just caught myself on the idea of Schrödinger's cat. I never actually could understand what is behind this paradox and only now I realized it. This experiment is a thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger tried to illustrate how one can transfer microscopic parameters to large scale systems or to macroscopic parameters. Cat`s life or death depended on the state of subatomic particle. Imagine a cat which is kept inside a box. There is a radioactive substance that can decay or not. If the internal monitor detects the radioactivity, the flask is shattered with a hammer releasing the poison that kills the cat. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat mixed or smeared out in equal parts. Thus an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can the be resolved by direct observation. 

What`s it like to be a scientist?

Few days ago, I paused myself on the idea of who actually scientist is. Also, how it is like to be a scientist and whether scientist profession differs from other professions. 
Wikipedia tells us that a scientist is one who engages in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist]. Does it mean that being a scientist implies constant study and non-stop absorbing knowledge? 
In Merriam-Webster, scientist is defined as a person who is trained in science and whose job involves doing scientific research and solving scientific problems [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scientist].
I believe a real scientist is the one who devotes his/her life to science 24 hours a day. 

I think it is just impossible to do research just within working hours at a laboratory. When you have unsolved problem then this problem will cross your mind over and over again making you more and more curious about possible solution and its result.  

Moreover, I  believe that scientists mentality differ from other people attitude of mind. Whenever they see any scientific problems or maybe just buying their groceries in the supermarket, they compose logical steps how to  optimize and to buy all things they need saving time and expenses. 

Well, scientist possess a cold mind. I do not think that they follow their emotions but rather their mind. 

Well, it takes more time for me to realize who scientist is. I ll get back to this question again and again...

Natural Opals

OPALS

Opals are amorphous form of silica. Opals are not hard mineral-like substances without regular geometrical crystallinity. However, they impress with their coloration since opals diffract light. This mysterious property of color change is called opalescence. Opalescence property occurs in natural and artificial structures. Now it is well-known that coloration comes from the periodic structures.  Physicists call this opalescent structure "photonic crystals". (F. Marlow, et al., "Opals: Status and Prospectus," Angewandte Chemie, vol. 48 pp. 6212-6233, 2009).

Figure shows (a) natural opal, (b) SEM image of natural opal and (c) SEM image of artificial opal (adopted from "Opal Photonic Crystals: Structure, formation, and Optical Properties" Dissertation, Muldarisnur, F.Marlow, Andreas Dirk Wieck).

Figure shows periodic structures in nature (a) Morpho rhetenor butterfly, (b) detail of its scales, inset: lateral shematic of the scale (scale bar is 100 um), (c) the sea mouse, (d) one of the sea mouse`s spine and the corresponding TEM image of its cross section. The dark areas are chitin, the light areas are voids with radious of 0.51 um, (e) a Peacock, (f) an SEM image of barbules and (g) the cross section of the barbule.  (adopted from "Opal Photonic Crystals: Structure, formation, and Optical Properties" Dissertation, Muldarisnur, F.Marlow, Andreas Dirk Wieck).

Iron (III) oxide nanoparticles 

Iron (III) oxide nanoparticles synthesized by thermal decomposition method, average size is 13 nm.

Figure shows self -assembled monodisperse magnetic nanoparticles (adopted from the report "Design, Synthesis and Characterization of Self-assembled Magnetic Nanoparticles" A. Rakhmetova, 2013)

Graphene Application

Graphene is a unique nanomaterial acquiring outstanding physical properties due to its electronic and structural characteristics. Here is the video showing graphene application. 

About my miniproject

by Asel on July 2011

I am a student in Multimedia University. Last semester I took a miniproject which is called “Synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles by co-precipitation method”. In this note I wish to share with my story and also my experience.

My miniproject for the synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles has reached its end. Many days spent in nanolab and many hours spent on doing my research will stay in my mind for the rest of my life.

Here, i just want to go back and remember all over again how it started. I still remember my first week, when i just came back from my homecountry. As i just arrived my two friends (my group for miniproject) ran to my house and began to explain how they lived without me for the whole week. They looked so worried and nervous trying to give me the understanding how that miniproject was going to be hard. In the first week, we already submitted our first report. That report was about the basic understanding of the Fe3O4 nanoparticles: its structure, shape and properties.  My friends said i should have seen our lecturer for miniproject as he was wondering why i missed first study week. Having come to his office and talked to him, i realized that our lecturer was cared about us and wanted us to learn more from him. There was one  more thing that i realized-i should forget about rest that semester and concentrate purely on my project.

Every time we went to minip* class, we felt stress. We could not know what to expect to come  out during the class. However, everytime something really challenging came. I remember how Dr. Ong** asked us to prepare slides within 45 minutes and prepare the presentation about different synthesises methods of Fe3O4. From here we learnt how we should be organized and how we should be fast in resolving problems. I should say that every challenge that our supervisor gave us was aimed to make us learn something from it. And every time after the class i was going home and thinking that i should have  performed in a better way as i did. Maybe, i  reproached myself.

I have to confess, some guys in our nano team i saw first time. Looking at them every time in class, i thought:”Oh, they are so smart”. That was really great to know them more. All of them have something unique and they have a lot of different interests. Some of them even surprised me with their talents.

Almost every single week, we  had a presentation to  prepare. It was very interesting to observe other teams, how they made their slides, what they said and how they replied to Dr. Ong`s hard questions.

When i stepped into nano lab, i was so happy to wear that white coat, gloves and goggles sometimes. I felt as i was a real nanotechnologist. Looking at those equipments surrounded us, i was amazed.

My groupmates (30 of us) were so friendly to me all the time. They were really free to talk whenever i asked them something. This is how we all began to be good friends and not just groupmates.

Our very first experiment was the most memorable. We came to nano lab early morning, neatly prepared all apparatus, stuck papers on fume hood. We returned to lab, began to measure chemicals. My hand was trembling, i was so nervous. Henry was standing next to me and saying to calm down. We really supported each other that day. Luckily, we got black precipitate, our first magnetic nanoparticles! That time we came home very tired but with a good mood.

I found that many my groupmates are so much creative. I will never forget Theng Yee`s (groupmate) specially made holder for camera…

We finished our first part of project and went to mid-break. However, we did not have any rest, because we still had a lot of work to do. Being jealous and looking how my other friends (not nano majoring) had their rest, we continued to struggle in finding any improvements.

In part 2, there were no longer three of us in a team. We combined with other teams. I should say that, we chose the right team to work together. (i hope they also think the same). I very liked those guys. From here, our lives became a bit easier but just for the short period. We varied some influent parameters and got our nanoparticles. That time, we believe we obtained a better quality of samples.

Coming to the end of the sem, suddenly our lecturer made an interview. We were so worried about the questions that Dr. Ong could ask. Waiting  our turn for some hours, we entered his room. He did not ask us about the theory or any our knowledge in nano field. But what he said was very impressive and what no other lecturers told us before. He gave us some tips for our future.  To set our priorities, to avoid mistakes, to be decisive and to negotiate. These just some of them that i can come out with now. He asked us one good question showing very green and big apple, “How would we divide this apple between two persons fairly”. After i came home, i began to ask my housemates the same question. Noone of them could come out with the right answer. What Dr. Ong said is that first of all, we should ask our friend, does he actually want this apple, how much does she/he want and so on…

There are four conditions that can take place: win win, win lose, lose win, lose lose. To make it win win and avoid lose lose, we should communicate, this is how we can achieve a fair decision.

So, i guess, we should ask ourselves first, what we need, how we can avoid mistake and set our priorities and of course negotiate.

We reached our final presentation. I was amazed how my all  nanogroupmates presented. All of them was so good at talking, their speeches were so organized and informative. Some of the group impressed me with the way how they made their slides. It s a lot of things that i can learn from my groupmates. Looking at them and thinking how they are good, i also want to grow.

One of my good friend said that his life was like a straight line with no spikes down or up before that miniproject. And now, he has a big spike up. It means that  before our university life was kind of boring, just attending classes, completing assignments and no classes where we can really show up our knowledge  and do something really worth and breathtaking.

Minip made us alive again.

This is the end of miniproject. Great experience, great people and great work, all of it we made during this 12 weeks. 12 weeks of pressure and 12 weeks of amazing time.

Thank you to my all groupmates and our supervisor! Keep it up….

minip*= short form of miniproject word

Dr. Ong**= our lecturer and supervisor for miniproject

Open Web Asia: Web Innovation in Asia

BY ASEL, ON July 17TH, 2010

For the two days (13-14 July) i was attending splendiferous event in Kuala Lumpur. My friend from FIT grabbed two free tickets for us. To your knowledge the ticket price was 200 RM. Now you can understand how huge and how splendid that event was.

First day. At 7 am in the morning my friend woke me up since in the given schedule we should have been there at 8 am for registration. Struggling with morning preparation we did n`t  know what we should have dressed up. Formal or not?? Take laptop or leave? Many questions.

We reached that place at 9 am due to traffic jam nearby KL. That event took place in Crowne Plaza Mutiara Hotel. I and my friend were impressed how that hotel was huge, rich and luxurious!!! After we signed in, we were given the brochure, it was kinda the big folder where we found schedule for two days, pen and some other things. Then we entered  a huge Hall, it was called Nirwana 1. There the first speech began. I should have mentioned before that during those two days various speakers would give their speeches. The speakers were from Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Malaysia and etc.

For the first speech “Growing Digital in Asia-Overview of Asia Web Industry” (that speech i like the most). The speakers were Mohan Belani (director, E27), Michael Francis Smith Jr. (Directore Global Initiative, Yahoo) ,Chang W. Kim (Founder, Open Web Asia) and Dr. Serkan Toto (Editor, TechCrunch). You can find it here: http://sea.openwebasia.com/

They were discussing how developed and what happens in Web Industry in countries like Japan, Korea, Singapore.

Japan is the most developed among all other countries and so Korea is. Some parts of their talks sounded so amazing for me and my friend, we actually didnot know so many things about those countries. In Japan, they buy everything online from the smallest things to biggest, they even can buy it from their cell phone. What was the most outstanding to hear that they even can buy a burger with the cell phone by just applying it to a sensor device. ^^

During our lunch and various tea breaks we had a network session as well. It was written in our schedule: “Lunch and network session”. In the beginning we could not get why they wrote network session. Then we got it. It means that during our lunch we should communicate to people. That event was actually aimed to bring many people together and make them exchange the  information..and simply to communicate.

For the second day,  we attended another various speeches. The most interesting was about “Mobile OS- Android vs iPhone” by Aaron Tan  and also “Understanding the power of Geo-Location services” by Richard Coombes.

Then we went to get our long-waited lunch. We found a table and went to grab as many food as we could (joke), especially cheese cake which we both  like so much! After we returned to our table, we found many people sat with us. I looked at a friend of mine and she  looked at me, we thought about the same thing: “OMG! These are so famous and Big people next to us!”

That Big people were very nice to us. And they just simply talked to us as we were the same level with them. They asked us about our country (we are from Kazakhstan), and they said that not many  people are familiar with our country. Then they advised us to advertise with the  means of Web… by blogging and sending them articles about fresh news in our country.. 

After those splendid lunch we went to Nirwana 1 hall. There we met one man, who is an educator, a  technologist and a traveler. I liked his speech very much. It was about his recent travels in Asia. He took pictures of how people there were dealing with Web, how they used it. It was interesting to know that people are so creative in using there cell-phones and Webs to ease their lives. He told about one guy in Africa, who used his phone in fishing.. The idea was that when a fish was in the fishing net, he received sms to his phone!
I made our two day adventure so briefly here, but i wish to say again, those two days were like a revolution, meeting people, talking to them and exchanging the information, all of it is worth to miss my two days in university….