Weekend trips offer breaks from research

Today's blog post comes from Rustin Golnabi,  a junior at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. 

It’s already been about three weeks since I’ve arrived in Belgium. I should have started writing blog posts sooner, but with all the excitement of the new environment, trips every weekend, and just getting settled overall, it’s taken a while to be able to put aside time to write about my experiences. Hopefully this will be the first and only time I have such a delay in writing this!

The first week I got here was hectic. From the airport, Eugene, Matt, and I had to figure out the technicalities on the first day, mostly without a bike (which I have learned by now is absolutely necessary!). Then I went in for orientation on Tuesday, and were to start work that afternoon and continue on Wednesday. It turned out (as our luck would have it) Thursday and Friday were holidays, so my supervisor, Pieter, told me to just hang out and read papers until the next week began. That week, we also met a couple more Americans, here by NSF funding, who were planning a trip to Amsterdam that weekend. So the four of us (Polly, Eugene, Matt and I) joined! It was rather expensive because of the last minute booking and heavily touristic nature of Amsterdam, but definitely a nice first trip!

Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam was beautiful. It seemed the only methods of transportation were by bike or tram. That, combined with the canals running through the city, made for very few cars and gorgeous scenery. To be honest, I don’t think I met a single native Dutch person there (because of the huge number of tourists), which disappointed me, but nevertheless, I had a great time, and I’m glad I got to see the city.

The next week, my work began to take off at imec. I was assigned to become familiar with the waveguide setup and begin characterizing a set of devices. While I have a slight background in photonics research, I can’t say I know too much about the subject, so I spent a lot of time trying to understand the concepts and what it was I was actually doing. I felt like I was thrown into a completely unfamiliar realm, but the people here understood that and worked with me.

The rest of that week, I just became more familiar with imec and the environment, and explored Leuven a bit. The town is gorgeous. I can’t quite pinpoint what it is I love about it, whether it is the incredible architecture, charming streets, access to everything you may need, or just friendly environment.

Anyways, that weekend I decided to go to Prague, where I would meet up with my cousins who were also travelling that week.

Prague

Prague

Prague was incredible, and I had so much fun with my cousins. We visited all the key spots, like the clock tower, the Charles Bridge, and the Jewish Cemetery. I met some awesome people on the plane ride there, an American couple with a baby who were in Brussels for a year on a work exchange. We happened to run into each other a couple times in Prague itself, then even ended up sitting next to each other on the flight back! It was an amazing coincidence, but I was so happy it happened.

Later, they offered to drive me into Brussels that Monday to explore, and I did. That Monday was another Belgian holiday, so I got lost in Brussels for the day, met a really great Moroccan tea shop owner, a friendly Museum administrator who helped me decide on my activities for the day, and I finally got the best Belgian Waffle I’ve had. Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve gone a day without eating either chocolate or waffles (or both), and I have absolutely no regrets about that. I mean, there is a reason for their notoriety in Belgium. :)

The week following my adventures in Prague (and Brussels), my supervisor Pieter was in California for a conference, so it was a bit difficult finding what to do to keep myself occupied. The head of our group was hardly in his office that week, so I continued to read, familiarize myself with another set of programs I was to be working with, and eventually begin to take measurements on a new set of devices. The week was largely uneventful, but it was some much-needed time to relax in my apartment.

Belgian Chocolate

Belgian Waffles

At the end of that week, I decided to visit Brussels on Saturday, and Brugge on Sunday. I stayed in a hostel in Brussels Saturday night, mostly to get a chance to meet more people, but also because of the low cost. I did the free walking tour of Brussels on Saturday, which taught me some more about what it was I was seeing and showed me some beautiful sights in Brussels. I really do love the city; it’s terribly underrated. 

I would recommend to anyone visiting the area to make a stop in Brussels. I also visited the Atomium that night, which was pretty cool! I knew not to expect too much, but I felt that I had to see it, especially since I had just finished a year of learning about unit cell structures like this one (body-centered cubic!). The inside was just a simple exhibit with a restaurant in the top “atom”. 

It was of course too expensive for me to eat at, so I went back into Brussels for dinner that night. The next day, I took a tour of Brugge. I met some amazing people on the tour and train ride there, who I’m excited to keep in touch with in the future. I think that honestly 90% of travelling to me is meeting new, interesting people, and for that this trip was the best so far. Brugge is a beautiful little town; it’s one of the most well-preserved cities of medieval times. It was worth a day trip, but that was probably enough to see it all.

Atomium

Brussels

After all this sightseeing, I don’t want to stop! This weekend, I’m going to Cologne, Germany, and next I think I’ll head to Antwerp and Ghent (two cities in Flanders).

I’ve been focusing a lot on the travelling I’ve done, but the reason I’m here is to learn at one of the premier research consortiums in the world. You can really tell why imec has the reputation it has once you get here. The cleanrooms are first class, and some of the most intense research happens within this building. The work environment is definitely pretty contrasting with that of the US, though.

Brugges

Rustin Golnabi

People tend to take full hour lunch breaks, come in whenever they want, and leave whenever they want, and just hang out and take coffee breaks in between as well. It makes for a really relaxed working environment, where you don’t at all feel stressed. Despite all this, however, the work is results-based, so everyone actually gets a lot done. Belgium is one of the most productive countries in the world, actually! It’s pretty cool to know that despite the lack of pressure put on the scientists, everyone is always busy and getting something done.

My work, specifically, hasn’t really taken off too much because the setup my group had planned for me to work on this summer wasn’t ready in time. In fact, it should probably be ready next week. For now, they have me characterizing some existing devices on a large wafer, not only to familiarize myself, but also to add to the results they are collecting from this set of “test” waveguides and resonators. I like the work, though it can be frustrating, and I find it interesting. It may not have been my ideal topic of research for this summer, but I can already tell that I am learning a lot, and from one of the best places in the world to learn!

Leuven

 All photos by Rustin Golnabi.

Levuen

Diversity rules at IMEC

Today's blog post from Belgium comes from Matthew Gonzalez, a senior in Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

My first two weeks are coming to an end here in Belgium. I’m finally starting to settle into Leuven and beginning real work at IMEC.

Leuven is a wonderful, little college town with quite of bit of entertainment. The Wisteria, the apartments we are all staying at is a short bike ride—only 15 minutes—from the town center where most of the action happens. There are plenty of little restaurants to grab dinner at and the Oude Markt, or Old Market, is the place to be on the weekend nights.

Night out at Oude Markt

Our Hopkins group got dinner and went to a few bars afterwards with some of the people we work with. Despite us being about 5 years younger, they were all very nice and friendly, inviting us along to make us feel welcome. The group we went with was made up with people from Spain, Italy and other countries beside the native Belgians.

IMEC is a very diverse place pulling in researchers from all over the world. I find myself trying to guess what someone’s accent will sound like before they open their mouth. Everyone speaks English, but each with a unique accent...everyone can instantly tell I’m an American after a few words. The nice thing is people actually like us Americans—I don’t think I’d be saying the same if I was in Paris!

IMEC itself is incredible. It reminds me of a big corporate lab from a movie that James Bond would break into. I will not be working in the huge cleanrooms, one of the most mentionable features of IMEC. This may be a good thing though because I’ve heard how obnoxious suiting up is. I still work in a clean environment in an argon atmosphere glove box, otherwise the lithium we use as the electrodes in the battery tests would ignite...which is never a good thing.

My project is the development and testing of batteries. Now I’ve never had any experience with batteries in my past research, which focused on controlled synthesis of nanoparticles. Although I will take some of the nanoparticles I’ve synthesized and use them as electrode materials, I first need to get the methods down. The general idea is coat a wafer in nanoparticle based thin film to create ultra-thin battery materials.

Leuven architecture

I’m almost finished with my first set of experiments—running tests on six pre-fabricated samples—and will learn the analysis process in the coming weeks so that I can become more independent and begin work on some novel experiments. Everyone in my group is very friendly and more than willing to help and teach me what they know. I still haven’t met the PhD student I will most closely be working with since he is on holiday (or on vacation for us Americans), but I’ll hopefully have a good grasp on the techniques and methods when he comes back.

I’m very excited to start research in a new field and learn all I can while I’m here…though I’m sure there will be plenty of fun to be had as well!

First days in Leuven: apartments, shopping, transportation and labs

The 2014 Summer at IMEC group is already hard at work and we have our first blog post from Polly Ma from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Read on.

My apartment in Leuven.

"It's been a week since I've arrived at Leuven, and I've finally started to learn the ins and outs of the town. For one, all shops and stores close extremely early and aren't open on Sundays either. There's no such thing here as a 2 a.m. stop at Subway to satisfy those late night cravings. Leuven is also the epitome of a college town, and the people here are generally on the younger side and very friendly. There hasn't been much of a language barrier at all, since most people in this city can speak English and are willing to pause and help the struggling lost American in the middle of the street. Also, in general, people in Leuven bike to get everywhere. The bus is also quite convenient, but at 2 euros a ride, it can get expensive. For people who do drive, all of their cars are much smaller than those in America. Speaking of smaller, portion sizes are also much smaller in Europe in general. The "regular" or medium size here is what we call a "small" in America, and the "large" size in America generally is never served in Europe. From what I've noticed, people here in Leuven at least, are fitter and dress better too.

Adjusting to life here hasn't been too difficult after renting my own bike to get around. In my first week here, I spent the first three days running around, getting registered at the appropriate locations, paying all my deposits, and looking for wifi in random locations (we couldn't get internet access in our rooms until we registered, which didn't happen until the third day.) The building we're staying at is called Wisteria at De Waag, and everyone is in a fully furnished studio. I got lucky, and my room came with a toaster, coffee maker, iron, hot water boiler, and a bunch of other goodies, like a double sized bed! The only downside to the room is that there is no wireless internet, but a few students bought routers and made their own. On the second day, we had orientation day at IMEC to meet our supervisors, take a safety tour, and get our badges. The IMEC campus is beautiful and quite large. It's almost a 7-10 minute walk from the labs to my desk office. Many parts of the buildings remind me of the office buildings in the Silicon Valley; they are big windows, very white walls, shiny surfaces, and lots of light. IMEC also has amazing equipment and facilities, most of which puts the stuff we have at Hopkins to shame.

Modern IMEC lab.

After finally getting oriented, Thursday turned out to be a holiday in Belgium, so we didn't have to go to work. Friday at IMEC was also a day off, so in my first week here, I already had a long weekend! To make the most of it, the four of us from Hopkins, as well as a few other friends we met, decided to make a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam (which I'll talk about in my next blog post!) However, I haven't had a chance to really explore and sightsee in Leuven or other parts of Belgium. Hopefully that will change soon!