Panic Begins

At my timetabled general seminar yesterday afternoon, we were told that our project presentations should be ready for the 18th of this month. So I have fallen into the trap of this unusually short term and I'm in exactly the position that I didn't want to be in. I'm running out of time - fast! I could complain about the disadvantages of having lectures during this second term and having to spend four months on first term lab reports which are ultimately worth a petty fraction of this project... But I won't.

I got back my original photodetector today so I hooked it up to the laser and DSO immediately. It worked and I hopped around with a grin and then I plotted the results and then I went back to thinking about the imaging parts of this set-up. Sile has ordered a CCD camera for me and tomorrow I must get a halogen lamp to provide a backlight for my beads and spheres. It should all look something like this:



Something that I know is going to be a nightmare is getting an image of the beads on screen. The illumination from below the spheres needs to be done with collimated light from the halogen lamp (or similar). I have to get the distances correct to ensure the CCD camera picks up the clear image from the microscope's back focus.

I need to get clamps or a stage with a cut-out from the center so that I can illuminate the sample slide from underneath. Also, there is the problem of the oil immersion microscope - I need a cover slip over the sample to put the oil drop on. That means that I have to get the water-bead suspension and fibre taper onto the bottom slide without any problems or mess.