My research project is to identify and
study the spectroscopy and chemistry of OH radicals in common ices that are
found in the Interstellar Medium (ISM). The ISM is the region in outer space
that is between solar systems. OH is an intermediate product in the formation
of water, by identifying where it occurs in a spectrum of an ice that is found in
space it will, in the long run, help give us a better understanding of how
water forms in space. I am experimenting with three different ices in my
research O2, N2, and CO.
On a normal week I usually only get to
perform one experiment. This is mainly do the fact that I have to share the lab
with a graduate student. The experiments themselves take nearly an entire day
to perform. This is because of the nature of the experiments that I am
performing. I am replicating the environment that you would encounter in space
and to do that you need vary cold temperatures and low pressures. I am working
at temperatures of about 6K which is -267◦C. It takes an hour and a half to
cool the cryostat down to those cold temperatures, an hour to do the background
scans, an hour to do the actual experiment, and another hour to do the final
scans. In total it takes about five hours to do one experiment.
The reason that I started this project
is because I am interested in physical chemistry and this project has a lot to
do with physical chemistry. I also wanted to get involved with this research
because it also deals with an area of chemistry that I am not very familiar
with which is Astrochemistry. By doing this research it has forced me to learn
a lot about an area of chemistry that is not commonly taught in an
undergraduate course. I have also had to learn advanced techniques that and
undergraduate student would otherwise never encounter. I feel that by getting
out of my comfort zone and learning all of these new aspects of how research is
done and understanding how to interpret real original results it will better
prepare me for when I go on to do my graduate degree in chemistry.
