I just got approved and scheduled the travel to France, Institute Laue-Langvin (ILL) for the next experiment. I just remember I wrote this but I didn’t published last December. Since we are in serious competition, so I need to publish our data as soon as possible and I would like to step further this time of experiment. I will write that here later. The following is thoughts from last December.

I have gone to Grenoble, France during 12/1 – 12/14 to perform experiment on Institute of Laue-Langvin (ILL). ILL is the best research reactor in the world. People here work very briskly and hard. I had enjoyed so much to do experiment there. And I believe I learned a lot.

 I can’t say about the project exactly though, I am working on newly found superconductor published 2015 March. The superconductivity appears only low temperature and high pressure phase. Superconductivity and Magnetism have profound relation people have never understood. I believe this material would be one of the most important materials to reveal the relations. While I was thinking, scientist is not ready to answer the relation on this material because no one has ever done direct observation of magnetic structure under pressure and low temperature. The bottle neck for scientist is to observe the phase experimentally. Neutron scattering experiment is powerful tool to study this kind of physics however neutron scattering experiment with high pressure cell is very difficult.

 The successful rate of this kind of experiment is less than 1/3 or so, we have done amazingly well this time. I am very thankful for instrument scientists and technicians there.  There are several reasons why the experiment is difficult. One biggest reason is that it is hard to control pressure on the material, we all risk of problem extremely high while we are using research reactor so the beam time is limited. And the sample space which can be apply high pressure limited so, we need to prepare very small sample with highly well aligned. The next thing is applying pressure with Paris Edingburg cell is insitu experiment. We can increase pressure during experiment however we can’t release the pressure so once we passed the phase we wanted, basically we are not able to come back the same experiment condition. So, I had to make decision very carefully at every phase to move on next.   

Also, 10 days of experiment without rest is very hard, I had tried every idea I could have come up with has failed. Anyway, I had tried what I could do, so I don’t.

The next proposal call for ILL is next February, I will probably write some to revenge this experiment. I would have to do preparation better for next time but I think I can because I have experience now.   

I have 5 hour’s off on Sunday in Grenoble. It was good time to walking around. I went to Park Victor Hugo, since I just finished rereading Les Misérables. I was excited. The park was decorated for Christmas and there is a market there. I bought souvenir for my family and friends. And also I went there with Gondra and the scenery from there was spectacular.

I am coming back to Sydney. I will finish quick manuscript on this experiment because I would love to publish the data as soon as I can. I have several things I have to finish Sydney. I will stay in Sydney for one week and then I will be on vacation in Japan for two weeks. I am very excited.

I will write here after 6 months from there how the situation has been changed and what we are doing now.