Review of Student-Built Spectroscopy Instrumentation Projects

Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. One challenge of teaching chemical analysis is the proliferation of sophisticated, but often impenetrable, instrumentation in the modern laboratory. Complex instruments, and the software that runs them, distance students from the physical and chemical processes that generate the analytical signal. A solution to this challenge is the introduction of a student-driven instrument-building project. Visible absorbance spectroscopy is well-suited to such a project due to its relative simplicity and the ubiquity of absorbance measurements. This Article reviews simple instructor- A nd student-built instruments for spectroscopy, providing an overview of common designs, components, and applications. This comprehensive summary includes options that are suitable for in-person or remote learning with K-12 students and undergraduates in general chemistry, analytical chemistry, instrumental analysis, and electronics courses

The MY NASA DATA Project

On the one hand, locating the right dataset, then figuring out how to use it, is a daunting task that is familiar to almost any scientist or graduate student in the fields of Earth system science. On the other hand, the ability to explore authentic Earth system science data, through inquiry-based education, is an important goal in US national education standards. Fortunately, in the digital age, tools are emerging that can make such data exploration commonplace at all educational levels. This paper describes the conception and development of one project that aims to bridge this gap: Mentoring and inquiry using NASA Data on Atmospheric and Earth science for Teachers and Amateurs (MY NASA DATA; mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov). With funding from NASA's Science Mission Directorate, this project was launched in early 2004 with the aim of developing microsets and identifying other enablers for making data accessible. A key feature of the project is a Live Access Server, the first educational implementation of this open source software, developed by NOAA, that makes it possible to explore multiple data formats through a single interface. This powerful tool is made more useful to the primary target audiences (K-12 and amateur scientists) through careful selection of the data offered, user-friendly explanations of the tool itself, and age-appropriate explanations of the parameters. However experience already shows that graduate students and even practicing scientists can also make use of this resource. The website also hosts teacher-contributed lesson plans, and seeks to feature reports of research projects that use the data

Theory of the ground state spin of the NV- center in diamond: I. Fine structure, hyperfine structure, and interactions with electric, magnetic and strain fields

The ground state spin of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond has been the platform for the recent rapid expansion of new frontiers in quantum metrology and solid state quantum information processing. In ambient conditions, the spin has been demonstrated to be a high precision magnetic and electric field sensor as well as a solid state qubit capable of coupling with nearby nuclear and electronic spins. However, in spite of its many outstanding demonstrations, the theory of the spin has not yet been fully developed and there does not currently exist thorough explanations for many of its properties, such as the anisotropy of the electron g-factor and the existence of Stark effects and strain splittings. In this work, the theory of the ground state spin is fully developed for the first time using the molecular orbital theory of the center in order to provide detailed explanations for the spin's fine and hyperfine structures and its interactions with electric, magnetic and strain fields.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

Introduction: looking beyond the walls

In its consideration of the remarkable extent and variety of non-university researchers, this book takes a broader view of ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’ than in the many hot debates about today’s knowledge society, ‘learning age’, or organisation of research. It goes beyond the commonly held image of ‘knowledge’ as something produced and owned by the full-time experts to take a look at those engaged in active knowledge building outside the university walls

Electron spin as a spectrometer of nuclear spin noise and other fluctuations

This chapter describes the relationship between low frequency noise and coherence decay of localized spins in semiconductors. Section 2 establishes a direct relationship between an arbitrary noise spectral function and spin coherence as measured by a number of pulse spin resonance sequences. Section 3 describes the electron-nuclear spin Hamiltonian, including isotropic and anisotropic hyperfine interactions, inter-nuclear dipolar interactions, and the effective Hamiltonian for nuclear-nuclear coupling mediated by the electron spin hyperfine interaction. Section 4 describes a microscopic calculation of the nuclear spin noise spectrum arising due to nuclear spin dipolar flip-flops with quasiparticle broadening included. Section 5 compares our explicit numerical results to electron spin echo decay experiments for phosphorus doped silicon in natural and nuclear spin enriched samples.Comment: Book chapter in "Electron spin resonance and related phenomena in low dimensional structures", edited by Marco Fanciulli. To be published by Springer-Verlag in the TAP series. 35 pages, 9 figure

Oxygen Transport Ceramic Membranes

The present quarterly report describes some of the initial studies on newer compositions and also includes newer approaches to address various materials issues such as in metal-ceramic sealing. The current quarter's research has also focused on developing a comprehensive reliability model for predicting the structural behavior of the membranes in realistic conditions. In parallel to industry provided compositions, models membranes have been evaluated in varying environment. Of importance is the behavior of flaws and generation of new flaws aiding in fracture. Fracture mechanics parameters such as crack tip stresses are generated to characterize the influence of environment. Room temperature slow crack growth studies have also been initiated in industry provided compositions. The electrical conductivity and defect chemistry of an A site deficient compound (La{sub 0.55}Sr{sub 0.35}FeO{sub 3}) was studied. A higher conductivity was observed for La{sub 0.55}Sr{sub 0.35}FeO{sub 3} than that of La{sub 0.60}Sr{sub 0.40}FeO{sub 3} and La{sub 0.80}Sr{sub 0.20}FeO{sub 3}. Defect chemistry analysis showed that it was primarily contributed by a higher carrier concentration in La{sub 0.55}Sr{sub 0.35}FeO{sub 3}. Moreover, the ability for oxygen vacancy generation is much higher in La{sub 0.55}Sr{sub 0.35}FeO{sub 3} as well, which indicates a lower bonding strength between Fe-O and a possible higher catalytic activity for La{sub 0.55}Sr{sub 0.35}FeO{sub 3}. The program continued to investigate the thermodynamic properties (stability and phase separation behavior) and total conductivity of prototype membrane materials. The data are needed together with the kinetic information to develop a complete model for the membrane transport. Previous report listed initial measurements on a sample of La{sub 0.2}Sr{sub 0.8}Fe{sub 0.55}Ti{sub 0.45}O{sub 3-x} prepared in-house by Praxair. Subsequently, a second sample of powder from a larger batch of sample were characterized and compared with the results from the previous batch