ACS Spring 2008: Laboratory shrines
There's no rule that says scientists can't be a bit superstitious, especially when it comes to sensitive laboratory equipment. Take, for example, students at Zhan Chen's laboratory at the University of Michigan, who have created a shrine to one of the lab’s two sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy lasers. Chen presented a picture of the shrine, replete with labels, at the introduction to his talk Sunday. I think my favorite part of the shrine is one student’s ponytail, although the inclusion of the thesis defense poster for a student who defied expectations and succeeded in graduating is a runner-up. Click on the image to enlarge.
Chen writes: “Even though our systems are commercial products, for my chemistry students, it takes some time for them to learn how to run experiments. Furthermore, it is not easy for my students to fix problems the SFG systems sometimes have. Therefore, they developed this ‘shrine to the lasers’ in hope that the SFG systems, including a pico-second laser, some nonlinear optical components, and a detection system, would be ‘happy’ to behave ‘normally’ all the time.”
Chen’s group uses SFG to study complicated surfaces and interfaces, including polymers and biological materials. They’re eyeing questions like biocompatibility, polymer adhesion, and anti-microbial peptide activities. The shrine continues to grow.