{"id":1182,"date":"2014-06-02T14:05:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T05:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lookingatnothing.com\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2014-08-31T15:27:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T06:27:44","slug":"travel-part-3-diamond-and-nottingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lookingatnothing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1182","title":{"rendered":"Travel part 3: Diamond and Nottingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third part of the travel consisted of experiments and one final talk to top it all off.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The experiments consisted of us (Zoe<\/a>, Ashleigh<\/a>, Martin<\/a> and me) spending two days at beamline I11<\/a> of Diamond<\/a> (more pictures here<\/a>). This is a high-resolution powder diffraction beamline, though we did not use the very fancy crystal array detectors. What we did use was an array of Mythen<\/a> strip detectors which gave the time resolution we were after.<\/p>\n

It has been about two or three years since I last set foot at a beamline for measurements (at SPring-8, I believe). However, it appears you never really forget, especially when surrounded by other experienced people. The measurements went smooth, even though the first day was a bit of a disappointment (with us managing to make enormous amounts of haematite, which we weren’t after).<\/p>\n

The second day, proved to be much more fruitful, and led to a good dataset or two. The group dynamic was very good, with everyone doing what they could and no big disagreements. This may have been helped by a reasonably good canteen and our slightly overzealous stock of fresh fruit and other nibbles within arms reach of the beamline workstations.<\/p>\n

After the last Friday morning at the beamline, we went back to our respective roosts. For me, that meant taking a (delayed) train to Nottingham.<\/p>\n

Nottingham houses the illustrious Prof. Philip\u00a0Moriarty<\/a>, of anti-stripy-nanoparticle<\/a> fame. As the trains were slightly delayed, I could not spend as much time there as I wished, but I was happy to be on time for my presentation for a small but very interested group of attendees. After a short but very interesting chat with Philip, I was left to wander the gorgeous campus by myself. It really is the most beautiful campus of the trip, and well worth a visit if you are in the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

In the evening i met up with a fun troupe of circus artists (somehow…), who managed to sneak me into a very odd piece of interpretive dance. It was a very funny way to end the whole tour, but I can’t say I’m sold on interpretive dance…<\/p>\n