My
name is Garrett Lee and I am currently working with Dr. Karen Sauer. My project
is to research, design, and build a probe for detecting the magnetic resonance
of a material at zero field. I approached Dr. Sauer last year to ask her about
opportunities to do research within her lab as Electrodynamics was one of my
favorite topics in physics. I ultimately became interested in this specific
project after talking with Dr. Sauer about research opportunities within her
lab, and after learning more about the various areas that I can do research in
we eventually settled on the magnetic resonance frequency as my project goal.
My
primary job from day to day is to find materials suitable for the experiment,
and to research solutions to physics problems. If no solutions or research can
be found on a particular topic then I must derive a solution to the problem
myself, and simulating said solution using software such as Matlab to see if it
matches up to our experimental data. An example of a recently solved problem
was finding the capacitance between two wires with antiparallel currents. The
capacitance between two near wires had been interfering with a coil we were
using, so I had to devise a way to reduce the capacitance which can we now know
can be done by inserting a low dielectric material between them, or by
increasing their separation.
This
project is apart of my long term goals as I wish to enter into a PhD program in
the near future and gaining research experience in this field will help me in
choosing programs, my field of study, and help with the actual admission
process. Getting experience in the more experimental side of physics, which is
what my project is, will be a great asset when deciding if I want to pursue a
degree in theoretical or experimental physics. Additionally, working within the
field of electrodynamics helps to give me an idea if it is this field or a
related field that I’d like to pursue graduate work in.
