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Hey, how are you? Hello, Asami. So, yesterday I got a message from you and you said that you were
kind of stressed out about your research. What happened? Yesterday was peak stress for me.
So, I am trying to graduate in maybe two and a half months from now. Wow. Well,
trying to defend in two and a half months and then graduate in the following month.
So, I'm in my last time crunch of everything and I have just one more experiment that I want to
do to sort of complete the story that I have right now. And so, as you know, but nobody who's
listening to this would know, I use lasers for my experiments. And it's a femtosecond laser,
which just means that it's a pretty complicated system. So, instead of having like nanopulse
or picopulse laser, I have femtoseconds. And femto is what? So, you know the prefix of these huge
numbers and small numbers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seconds, microseconds. Wait, is it micro?
Seconds, milliseconds, microseconds, picoseconds, femtoseconds. So, 10 to the minus 15. And so,
it's a pretty short, short, short pulse. And just to make things even more complicated,
my experiment requires that those very, very narrow pulses to overlap in space and time.
They need to overlap in space and time. So, in order to do that, I basically have three box
of laser to sort of tune up and make it usable. And box one needs to work in order for box two
to work. Box two needs to work in order for the box three to work. So, but box one, the mother
sort of laser of all, is extremely temperature sensitive. The temperature tolerance it can
tolerate is plus minus one degrees. Beyond that, this thing called thermal expansion happens. So,
the laser is already hot. And when the atmospheric temperature is different from
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when it was aligned last time, what it wants to do is to sort of have a different interaction
with the main part of the laser, which is the gain medium. And because of that slight change in
temperature, it messes up the whole alignment and it does not want to do the job that it's
supposed to do as a box one. So- Okay. So, before you do any experiments using those lasers,
so you do have to kind of calibrate, I mean, set up the temperature first?
Yeah. So, I need the lab temperature to be pretty stable, which is sometimes stupidly difficult
when it's cold, like it is right now. Outside? Yeah.
Cold. So, yeah, when it's cold outside and the heating of the building kicks in, sometimes it
sometimes it overheats or under heats. And even though I allegedly have a temperature controlled
lab room, it's two degrees of difference is too much, right? And very frequently,
I have that kind of temperature. So, that's one thing. And then I have to align box one,
make it stable, and then align box two, and then align box three. So, it was Thursday that I
realized that, okay, it's about time I need to realign the lasers. I need to do this at least
every two to three weeks and more if I'm having trouble with alignment or if the lab temperature
decides to go bonkers or something like that. So, on Thursday, I realized I needed to do this.
On Friday, I redo this. I redid the whole thing from box one, box two. When I got to box three,
I realized that something was off. Even though the day before, I aligned box two in almost exactly
the same condition. So, there's no business for these box three to have issues with it, right?
Like, for as far as I'm concerned, I prepared the same kind of laser and same kind of light to go
into the box three. And I couldn't figure out why because I have, you know, a few tricks up my
sleeves to, you know, for any common problems, right? Like I've had many issues with this box
three as well. So, I know a few things I can try. I've tried all these things and nothing was happening.
Like, there was no light coming out of box three and I had to kind of call the manufacturers,
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figure out what's wrong, like, you know, troubleshoot one by one. And I was just really frustrated because
I just need to do one more experiment. All I needed was like one week of laser being a good boy
or good girl. Actually, I don't know what gender my laser is, but whichever. All I needed was
for it to be a good kid for just one week and it decides to do bonkers. And I was just so frustrated.
I don't think, like, I hadn't cried in a lab for so long. And on Sunday, after spending all of
Saturday and all of Sunday trying to fix this, I was just like, fuck this. I hate, like, why is this
happening to me? I'm so close and this damn laser won't fix itself. And I'm doing exactly the
right thing that I normally do and it gives me good light and I couldn't figure out what's wrong.
On top of that, Monday was a federal holiday in America, so I couldn't contact the manufacturers.
I had to wait until Tuesday. And Tuesday, I called them up, emailed them, you know,
figure out, get some suggestions. They told me basically that what I'm doing is right.
They don't think there's any major issues with the laser itself. It's just kind of patience.
It's basically their suggestion. I'm like, I've been fucking patient this whole fucking time.
I cannot do this. But you know what? I appreciate their suggestions and I tried a few
things that they tried, they suggested. And so today is Wednesday and I have been working all
day long on that laser as well. And mind you, this is like I've been doing and redoing box one
and box two's alignment so many times already in the past three days at this point. And yeah,
like today, like at 6pm, I try one last thing and it worked. Suddenly?
I know what parameter I changed, but it was one that shouldn't have changed.
And I was kind of surprised to find that. But I, you know, because I have already like
Shiramitsubushi, you know, I've done every single other possibilities more like in the order of
likelihood. I was like, it's really unlikely, but let me try this. And it fixed. I was like,
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I saw the light coming out of box three. And it's actually a lot of power for what I want to do.
So I was really happy at the end of today. Yeah. So yeah, like yesterday, when I texted you to
double check that we're gonna do this recording. I was like, I'm so fucking frustrated. Like I'm
gonna be in such a bad mood. But like, three hours ago, you know, like everything was fine.
And it's great. And so tomorrow morning, I hope I get in there and nothing, hopefully nothing
happened overnight. And, and then I will just conduct my last experiments and be done.
Great.
Oh, I mean, you know, knock on wood.
Yep.
You always say it's the last experiment, and it's never gonna be the last experiment.
But last one that I am planning right now. So hopefully, I'll be done with this. And then
all of May, sorry, all of March, I can focus on writing my thesis, then be out of it.
Wow.
It's a plan.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad that you're, you're not in a bad mood today.
I'll be scared.
Honestly, I wasn't sure. I was not sure if I would be able to make it to the recording today.
But I'm very glad that this happened. I'm just, I'm just so relieved.
Yeah.
It's crazy. Like, you know, it's my, my, I mean, obviously, this is not the first time
I experienced something like this. But it's like, puchi zetsubou and puchi hai, like every
other day in the experiment. You know, it's like, sometimes it works beautifully. And you're like,
damn, I'm so good. And then the other day is like, why is nothing working?
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I tried to stay neutral. I think I try to be like, you know, not
overly excited when things are working or overly depressed when things are not working. But
this was like, with the time crunch, and the fact that this is going to be like,
one of my last experiments. I was just really frustrated.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that that's all I just wanted to share that I am in a better mood right now.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes, but, you know, I remember
several times you mentioned about the location of the boxes, and sometimes the locations are
like, slightly misaligned. And you were kind of, yeah, you were concerned. And yeah,
this laser is quite something. I mean, it's very good that I am learning these skills to align
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the lasers. And thankfully, this is a commercially available laser. So I can
ask the manufacturer, like the field engineers, for some advice. Yeah, it's one thing. I think
there's pros and cons about homemade instrument and commercial instruments. We have like 50% of
our instrument, our whole setup, 50% is homemade, but the laser is commercial lasers. And I'm very
glad that I didn't have to, you know, make oscillators from scratch or something like
that. Because it's possible you could do that. It's just going to be so much more pain in the
ass to maintain and make it keep it in a working condition. Yeah.
Well, it's all worked out.
Just a day in life. Yeah, just a day in life on experimental physical chemistry.
Well, thanks for sharing.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us at EigoDeScience on
Twitter. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time.
