I’ve been curious how many working researchers we’ve got in this community, and what you all do!
If you’re working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I’m upset that “amateur” has a negative connotation, it shouldn’t.)
I’m currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I’ve been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.
Our beamline is still very new (my main focus was actually on building/commissioning it), so for now, we’ve just been looking at relatively simple processes like the Debye-Waller effect, where the diffraction spots become weaker as the temperature rises.
The ultrafast capability comes from the electron beam having a sub-picosecond duration, which essentially corresponds to the shutter speed of a camera. By varying the delay between a pump laser and the electron probe and observing the change in intensity of the diffraction spots, we can figure out how the heat deposited by the laser diffuses through the sample, and make a “molecular movie” of this process. It’s in the same spirit as other pump-probe experiments, like what @Salamander does.