Finally Getting to Work

I started work today! I had met with my professor, Yan Li, a few times in the last two weeks, so I knew that I would be doing research involving carbon nanotubes. Since I had never worked with carbon nanotubes before, I asked for some papers to read, which gave me some background information on the subject. I was still a little nervous when I started work today because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Everything ended up pretty smoothly though. Luckily most of the people in the lab speak some English, so communication shouldn’t be too much of an issue. One of the undergrads, Lin Zi Yin, whose name I can’t even begin to pronounce (it’s much harder than it looks), got me set up at a desk, with a computer, and gave me a cute little leather lab notebook, goggles, and lab gloves. He also showed me around the lab, explained how to use most of the instruments that I’ll have to use, and translated their buttons into English for me.

I learned today that I’ll be trying to figure out how to effectively bind copper nanoparticles to carbon nanotubes. I spent most of my time in lab today reading a few papers on the topic, and was sent home with a few more to read. Tomorrow I will be trying out my experiment for the first time. It turns out that my overabundance of black clothes will finally be coming in handy. Apparently carbon nanotubes can leave black marks on clothing, so I’m going to have to wear dark clothes into lab for the rest of the summer.