[we're] here for the next week or so [to] do an experiment and we are standing in the synchrotron right now

You can see it all around [I]

Think that [one] is a particle accelerator

Where electrons are circulated around put in a roughly circular or a pretty well circular trajectory?

Very very very close to the speed of light. We are not so much interested on like Particle physicists

We're not so much interested in the particles of themselves what we are interested in for our

experiments is the fact that when you take a charged particle like an electron and

Circulate it very very close to the speed [of] light or accelerate it very close to speed of light

What it does is it gives off?

What's called synchrotron radiation. So this is radiation that goes all the way from infrared up to very very hard very very [high-energy]

X-Rays and we as condensed Matter physicists solid-state physicist nano scientists

Whatever you want to call us what we are most interested in is harnessing that light

Shining it onto a sample and learning about what the atoms and molecules

And that sample are doing we walk around is there's a sort of hissing noise

And the hissing noise comes from nitrogen gas now because of this very bright light that we have it's very very focused

But it can get quite hot so we are standing right above. What is called Beamline eyes zero name

What's a beam line? Well? You have the electrons circulating around. How do you get the light out well?

What happens is you have tubes funnels

through which the light travels and also as you can see

Us going off into the distance you might be able to see this in terms of just coming off

tangentially to the to the ring

We're on the surfaces and interfaces line just here just down here and we will be collecting that light

Coming from those electrons and shining it onto our sample down in this experimental hatch down here

So to get beam time you have to like anything in science

you have to write a grant proposal you have to get the time you have to get the funding for the work and

We wrote that proposal quite some time ago almost a year ago now

So we were hugely excited when we got the time and they were hugely excited to be here to actually be able to exploit this

Synchrotron radiation

So what we're looking at here is obviously we need to have optics to get this light down

But this isn't optics these are X-Ray optics

And we need to be able to get those x-rays onto our sample to focus them down the synchrotron is about 10

billion times Brighter than the sun

So this is an immense engineering challenge with very very clever people doing this work

To ensure that we can get that those very bright x-Rays and get them on to our sample

so that [the] Tube you can see

Coming down here is actually the tube that is carrying the beam [to] [our] to our chamber, and it's also a high vacuum

So it's a pressure comparable to that you get on the surface of the moon the electrons are not [allowed] to the electrons are basically

Circulating away over there what [we're] what is coming down

This Tube is the light generated by those electrons, and that's going to come into or similarly ultra high vacuum chamber

We're going to have those x-rays and they're going to impinge on our sample

And then we're going to find out wonderful things about our particular molecule

We're in the experimental hochberg

This is where we actually do the experiments and the light actually comes in through this Tube here

And then we're going to chase out through the tumors ETc some more optics some

very tips of

Diagnosis, and then we're coming all along all along

Into our experimental chamber here. It's an ultra high vacuum Chamber [Stainless-steel]

Pressure in here very very low again comparable to the surface of the moon and our sample sits in there

So the beam is coming into our chamber, and it's going to the beam is going to hit our sample

And it's going to eject the electrons out and we want to measure the energies at which those electrons come out

It's actually something called the photoelectric effect which it wasn't for a relativity that Einstein won. His nobel prize

It was actually for the photoelectric effect something called photon emission

that's what we're doing here one part just one part of what we're doing here photons in, electrons out and

Every material has [its] own signature in terms of its photo emission spectrum, so this is our electron energy analyzer this wonderful

hemispherical analyzer

and it's literally called a hemispherical analyzer and

The way we measured the energies [of] the electrons is that we have a couple of spheres in here, and we put a voltage on

those spheres and then what we do is we [clear] off the

centripetal

Force on the electrons against that that voltage so we play off the centripetal force against the electrostatic force and

only those electrons that I've got the right and

Kinetic energy the right speed are actually going to make it through and then we vary the voltages and we can collect a spectrum that

way

Precisely, that's exactly what it does. It's an energy pencil. So it it allows us to detect how many electrons

We've got of a certain energy all these different arms

you can see

It's also allowing us to move samples around in vacuum without

Breaking the vacuum and so we can use these arms to move the sample around

What they're doing over here? What Sam's doing at the moment is sorting out?

The the important aspects that this experiment [let] me tell you about the experiment

We're going to do so this is the [molecule] were interested, and it's a absolutely fascinating molecule

It's a [C60] it's [a] what's called a Buckminsterfullerene

We've got a single water molecule, and this is made. We don't make this we're not half clever enough

We are physicist we are not clever enough to do this. This is made by our colleagues in Southampton

They do something called molecular surgery they open up a hole in the cage

they drop a water molecule in and then they seal up the hole just with wet chemistry it's

Phenomenal the water molecule is trapped within the kids. It's in kids its incarcerated within within this molecule

Why is that interesting [well] first of all you've got a single water molecule not interacting with any other water molecules

[this] is not something you find very often in nature the C60 is about a nanometer across once you confine

Molecules once you confine atoms and once you confine particles to small spaces

That's when you start to see very interesting quantum effects

What we're really interested [in] is can we exploit those effects when we take this molecule and put it down onto a surface

And the first question to ask is when you put it down onto a surface and the cage bonds to the surface does the molecule

Inside does the water molecule feel the effect of the surface

Or is this just like a faraday cage does it completely screen it out

So that [the] water molecule doesn't see the surface there are a number of different things

We do both up the first is to exploit this photoelectric effect this photo emission effect photons come in

We excite electrons out [of] the oxygen and we can look at the spectrum [of] those

Electrons to work out, what's happening with the water molecule? Where do we get those photons?

Well we get them from the [beamline] why do we need the beamline and why is a synchrotron?

Why don't we just do this with an X-Ray source back in Nottingham?

Why don't we do [it] in a lab the great thing about a synchrotron?

Is that you can tune the photon energy?

across a very wide range in this case from hundred Electron volts of the killer Electron volts that's a

Remarkable tool because we can tune in on [particular] parts of the spectrum and work out what's going on the challenge of this experiment?

it's a really fun experiment to do is we take a silver surface which everybody is busily preparing at the moment and

We're going to put our molecules down onto that surface the first challenge is how do we get the molecules down into the surface?

well what we do fortunately would [C60] we can take it as a powder, and that's how we

guess we get about a milligram of these molecules at the black powder we put it into an oven it's literally an oven and

We [bolt] [it] [onto] the chamber

We heat it up and the molecules very nicely

Sublime they go directly from the solid phase to the gas phase and they stream off as a beam of molecules

They hit the surface and they stick and if we do that in just the right way

It's [taking] us a bit of time to work out just

What that [right] way is what if we do it in just the right [way]?

Then you can get a nice ordered film an ordered mono layer a single layer of molecules on the surface

Then we take a beam of photons

They come in and we look at the electrons of a given out by the water we also interested actually in the kids itself

So we also look at the electrons coming out from the carbon

That's the first stage of the experiment, but [actually] the technique. [we'll] use in here

in parallel

And a real advantage of this particular beam line because it can do this technique. It's something called X-Ray standing with analysis and that's

That is a fascinating technique and here's where my lack of a crystal comes into play what we do is. We have a crystal

There's [a] surface of a crystal. We have planes of atoms

What we have here is our beam coming in now if we tune our photon energy of [our] beam

To something called the Bragg Condition right what that means is if we get the wavelength of our beam?

So it's the right is the same size as the spacing of the crystals well half of the crystal planes

What will happen is that the beam will get diffracted?

So we have a beam coming in here, and we have a beam diffracted which comes back out

and when those two beams interfere

What happens is we get to get something which is called a standing wave it's pretty well exactly what happens on a guitar string you

get a standing wave [set] [up] [on] a guitar string in terms of the interference of [travelling] waves on a guitar string and

Now the great [thing] is if we have our molecule at the surface

We have this standing wave field which has got a periodicity

It's a weird so it's got a periodicity the molecule bears in this

Wave that's the best way of thinking about it. You've got the molecule

Which is sitting in this wave field and if you change the energy of the incoming beam

just a little bit what you can do is you can tune the Maxima and minima you can shift them back and forth [and]

By shifting them back and forth you shift them back and Forth through the oxygen

And then what happens is if you look at the electrons coming out from the oxygen you will see a characteristic profile

depending on where the

Water molecule is sitting with respect to the surface planes the reason we're doing all [of] this is to find out where in the kids

The molecule is sitting and moreover

We're not even restricted to those planes what we can do is you can rotate our sample and we can triangulate?

the position after we do the same thing again and

Triangulate the position of a single molecule within the cage we have done some preliminary work [were] fairly confident

It's going to be sitting fairly close to the key to the center of the cage which is

Relatively surprising because when these molecules when the fullerene molecules go down onto the surface, what happens is was charged

from the silver surface

Electrons go into the molecule bonds are quite strong bond and yet the water just sits in the middle of the kids [well]

I don't care what seemed seemingly does it seems to be completely screened from its environment

Which in terms of actually being able to exploit this effect to be able to look at those?

That water molecule explode in a device for example is really [quite] interesting

Good luck Tim [laughing] they are going to turn on the beam we will be fried we will absolutely be fried

You're looking into the chamber absolutely

so you're looking into the preparation one of the preparation chambers this thing coming down with the bellows is a

Manipulator that allows us to move the sample up and down. You've got all these various

What are called feedthroughs?

Which allow you to feed electrical signals in and out from [the] sample for example to heat it for example or to measure the temperature?

Of the sample the windows are obviously obviously this is a wonderful invention called a leak valve

It allows you to leak in very very small [quantities] of gas

And that's what we need to do to prepare our sample. What we do is

We bombarded with argon ions business is happening here in [terms] of the measurement is happening and over here in these chambers over here

That's where the beam yeah in terms of where the beam hits the sample and here is going to our analyzer

This large cylindrical Tube. This is [our] analyzer

Thank you

for 10 weeks

[I] think I guess yeah by 10 weeks since we did the beam time so we've done some analysis

And when I say we I'm using the royal way, I must admit. I have not been heavily involved with the analysis. It's been driven