by Pin-Wen Wang

This summer, I really wanted a challenge. I wanted to do something I had never done before, and so… I ended up in Germany. I had never learned in German before, had little to no knowledge of German culture, and couldn’t even tell you which city I was going to be living in. I wasn’t going to Europe as part of a program, and really just had no idea what was ahead of me. I remember sitting on the plane, a few hours before departure, and all I kept asking myself was “what have I gotten myself into?”

Two and a half months later, I’m sitting in the comfort of my own home, reflecting on my time in Germany, the times I stayed late in the lab analyzing data, the times my coworkers and I laughed and talked over jumbo cocktail drinks until midnight, and the times I spent traveling around Europe with just my loyal red backpack and a folded map. So what was a challenge for me?

by Pin-Wen Wang

Is it possible to say that a “place” has inspired me this summer? Throughout my time in the Lorke lab, my professor, my supervisor, and all the other master students and Ph.D. students have been instrumental in helping me enjoy my time in Germany. Through their collective kindness, I’ve had the opportunity to actually become part of the lab and part of this “graduate” school culture where there are constant jokes about the amount of coffee they drink. But, alas, I should stick with one person that has really inspired me this summer. I thought about it for a long time, and I decided that I would pick someone not from the lab. Instead, I want to talk about Volker (http://ffindr.com/en/player/germany/volker-gruen), an amazing ultimate Frisbee player who I had the pleasure of playing with on the Duisburg Frisbee team (Du bist Frisbee).

by Pin-Wen Wang

I think that out of everything I’ve learned, the concept of photoluminescence is probably the single most important fundamental (but not complex) concept that I needed to understand to help me with my research. When you break up the word photoluminescence, it’s just “photo” and “luminescence”. Luminescence is the phenomenon of a material giving off light. “Photo” refers to photons or packets of energy that, in physics, quantifies the energy that creates light. What photoluminescence of a material refers to, then, is a material’s ability to give off light by giving off these packets of energy.

A very similar concept is bioluminescence, which can be likened to the way a firefly gives off light, by biological/chemical processes within its body. For my research, I needed to count how many photons were given off by “my” nanoparticle materials when I agitate the material with a laser, giving the material energy. The number of photons that are given off though isn’t constant, nor does it follow a well defined curve. That’s where my research comes in.

by Pin-Wen Wang

Every time I Skype my dad, he asks me the same question: have you learned anything? Every time I answer, though, I’m unsure. Have I “learned” anything? I guess I’ve learned things that aren’t measurable with a written exam or a multiple choice test, but I really have learned so much from lab life to traveling. In the lab, I’m getting a real taste of what it’s like to do
experimental physics. Physics is so hard to explain. One of my main goals this summer is to measure nanoparticles and their photoluminescence and attempt to glean some insight about its characteristics from my data. With each set of data, the anxiety increases. What will my graph look like this time? Will it match my older sets of data? Every time two sets of data are a match or begin to follow a clear pattern, I get excited. Very excited. But the thing about experimental physics, as the guys in the lab tell me, is that physics never does what you want it to. Just when you think you’ve figured out the pattern, you take another test just to make sure and find out that everything is behaving differently now. What has changed? What is happening? The only thing we can do is theorize. We can try to understand what is happening inside the little nanoparticles and hope that our explanations will be reproducible.

by Pin-Wen Wang

When I found out that I would be spending my summer in Duisburg, I honestly had to look up where Duisburg was. I didn’t even know in what region of Germanyit was in. 

In the industrial age, Duisburg was an important harbor port for Germany and was home to the country’s most important steel and coal industries. Because of this, during World War II, the region was severely bombed. From stories I’ve heard, it is my understanding that the population of Duisburg literally disappeared for some time after the war. Even today, this area is struggling with its economy. At night, Duisburg feels a bit like a ghost town; the streets are empty and dark, but oddly enough, it still feels safe, really safe. I’ve visited many other cities in the region, including Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen, but none of them have the same feeling as Duisburg. Duisburg really is an industrial region, much like the rust belt of the states, if you will.

by Pin-Wen Wang

At work, I belong to the optics group, working generally with, well optics. Right now the main areas of research in our team are LEDs and nanoparticle photoluminescence. I’m working on the latter, but I’ve dabbed a little in LED making as well. My supervisor, and Ph.D. candidate, Daniel, is perhaps the best supervisor anyone could ask for. Having studied in England, his English is
almost perfect and carries a signature British feel to it. It must be the accent or something, but he has a real knack for teaching lab techniques. Although he is usually busy on a day to day basis, be it preparing for a conference or helping others think of new ways to do their experiments, he somehow always has time for me. After teaching me the basics of the lab, how to use the lasers, and how to analyze data, he was quick to let me run free, and I love it. He gave me all the tools I needed to start doing research, creating experiments, and thinking about the data, but he stepped back to really make me feel like I was in control of the research. I respect him so much for his knowledge, but I respect him even more for his character and patience.

By Pin-Wen Wang

A day in the lab starts around 9 a.m., but I tend to get in a little earlier. Something about being in Germany makes me wake up before my alarm and greet the sunlight coming through my windows with a smile.

I love getting into the lab early because I get to watch others slowly trickle in and go about their
morning coffee routine. My first job in the mornings is to refill our camera with nitrogen. Most of my lab time is spent working in what is called the “dark room,” where laser measurements are taken in complete darkness for more accurate data. The apparatus in this room shines a laser at different intensities onto my nanoparticles with the goal of capturing the emission of light given off by their electrons. The camera attached to this apparatus allows us to see the nanoparticles; the problem is, these nanoparticles are really small, and if the camera isn’t sharp enough, we can’t see anything. That’s why we use liquid nitrogen to cool down the camera and minimize vibrations or noise that would blur our images. I don’t know if you’ve ever played with liquid nitrogen, but it’s a lot of fun-- liquid nitrogen evaporates quickly at room temperature, freezing everything around it, andI love to watch the air condense into white clouds as I guide the nitrogen into the canister.

Choosing engineering as my concentration is the first step in figuring out why there are so many e’s in an engineer. My goals for now are to explore the science and engineering field until I find an area that is just right for me.  All I know is that I love the field of science and technology and I want to be a part of this community.