Alice in Wonderland: 2005

The credit for the inception of the outreach program should go to Ms. Elaine Chang, formerly a student in the L. B. Johnson Science Academy magnet school in East Austin and later a student at Stanford University. Elaine attended a lecture Professor Demkov gave to the audience of high school science teachers and students as a part of the UT Department of Physics outreach. Much to Dr. Demkov’s surprise, Elaine contacted him Demkov in late April and asked to spend the summer with his group learning about physics and high-performance computing. As a teenager, Demkov had spent a summer in a national lab, and that experience had determined his future; so, though Elaine’s request was somewhat unusual, he agreed. Elaine got a UT EID, library card, office space, computer, etc., and was able to participate in the group’s research activities as well as partake of the intellectual life on campus. She also created an early version of this web site, as well as the a web site for Dr. Demkov’s group.

A brief summary of Elaine’s study from that summer of small Si clusters and their oxidation can be found below.

Books and Articles Read

• “Model Simulations of Zeolite Supralattices: Semiconductor Si Clusters in Sodalite” (Phys Review)
• “Oxygen Adsorption on Small Si Clusters: A Full-Potential Linear-Muffin-Tin-Orbital Molecular Dynamics Study” (Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter)
• “Ab Initio Study on Oxidized Silicon Clusters and Silicon Nanocrystals Embedded in SiO₂: Beyond the Quantum Confinement Effect” (Phys Rev)
• Sections of Introduction to Solid State Physics, Kittel
• College Chemistry and sections of General Chemistry (Linus Pauling)
• Sections from several Physics books (General Physics, College Physics, Introductory Physics)

Tasks Performed

• Learned Linux and ran Fireball to find the base energy geometries of simple silicon clusters (Si 2–7) and oxidized silicon clusters (Si 2–5 and corresponding number of Os).
• Learned HTML and created a web site for the group

“What I learned from the experience….”

• Proficiency in basic Linux commands and HTML code
• Understanding of the very basics of solid state physics (lattice arrangement), as well as some quantum concepts (Schrodinger’s, Hamiltonian operator, wave function, particle in a box, etc.)
• Introduction to a wide range of subjects that I hadn’t known existed: Image rendering, computational biology, quantum computing, etc., via lectures, dissertation proposals and defenses, and seminars held on campus during the summer