Category: Physics

Get ready for the experimental proposals

Once in six months, we have a proposals deadline. We are accepting the experiment proposal for neutron scattering experiments all over the world. I am in charge of a cold triple-axis spectrometer so I want to collect very interesting experimental proposals every round. Also, I have to make sure that the experiment is suitable for our instrument. There are many things to consider.

Firstly, I have to make sure we can cover the range in momentum and energy space we want to explore with the material. Secondly, I personally like large single-crystal very much because we can many things to explore. Also, if the single crystal is rare, that would be great. Thirdly, we would like to study neutron inelastic scattering or neutron scattering with polarized neutrons because these are our advantage so I can use my expertise there. There are only a handful of instruments can do what we can do. Finally, I would like to study high-quality science. That excites me. How do I know that the quality of science is high? I know when I saw it!

But sometimes, finding a good science before we actually do the experiment is hard. In that case, the easiest one is finding something new, such as new single crystals or single-crystal no one has done the neutron scattering experiment, especially on inelastic neutron scattering or polarized neutron scattering. Then, we can at least find something new. So it is worth publishing. When we have a new single crystal, I am very happy but the first thing I have to make sure of is what people already have studied for the material. If there is not, I need to know why people have not measured yet. So I do literature surveys on the material and see what we can do on that material.

This time, luckily, it seems we have too many single crystals, this is too much overjoying. Several professors offered me to study single crystals to investigate and I can pick up whatever the single crystals? What? I am very happy but I have to spend substantial time to do the literature survey and estimation which single crystals sample work for us. This is one of the happiest times for scientists. I think when we are making plans is the happiest time and when we are finishing the first draft of the manuscript is the hardest time.

So luckily, I have many ideas to finish off writing my proposals while I am helping others to write this round. I have to do the calculation and the data analysis as well. I am very happy but it is a bit overwhelmed. I am not sure I can finish all the writing before the deadline which is two weeks time.

I will do my best. For this blog, I can’t disclose my ideas at this point. However, I am thinking I could try to write all processes of one of the projects before I will write the manuscript. As you know usually scientists do not show them but this could be a test. By doing so maybe others can read my progress here online, so I have to push myself harder to finish my own paper. I think this is an idea to try.

今日は全く激しい日だった。もともと予定していた実験は単結晶試料の軸たてができていないということだった。今週初めからというか一月初めから解決しようとしてきた問題だが複数の問題が解決できずに結局僕が自分の実験をすることになった。

まずは初めに今回の実験は磁場中の中性子回折実験。磁場をかける装置をまず私の管理している三軸分光器に乗っけるところからはじまる。これには大体一日かかる。これに対して前回の実験者から引きつけばよく。すぐに実験できる状態になっていた。しかしながらすぐに実験できる状態というには一つ条件があってそれは軸立てが終わっているということだ。今回はそれができていなかったということ。準備ができていなかった。この磁場中の実験でなぜ軸立てが重要かというとこの磁場装置を載せた状態では装置を傾けることができず、試料の軸立ては完璧にしなくてはいけない。具体的には1度以内に傾きを抑えなくてはならずこれは目視では確認できないほど小さなものだからだ。

今回、共同研究者は入念に準備をしてきたがそれでも実験を始めることができず、私の試料を代わりに入れることにした。彼らの実験は後日やることになる。それはそれでよい。自分自身問題解決に向けていろいろしたが今回は困難だった。

一つは試料の軸立てをするための装置がこちらにはある。それを使って準備をする予定だった。この装置は動作状況も良好で実際に使える形であるが、なんとその上流にある装置が修理中でありその修理中の装置が中性子ビームを遮っている。なんとここで運が悪いことにこの中性子ビームを遮っている状態さえ解決すればいいものの、安全装置に関わるところで動かせない状態だという。なのでその装置を使って軸立てができないということがわかった。この装置を軸立てに使えることが最善だったがその手が撃たれてしまった。

次に他の装置で軸立てをするという手もある。しかしながらその軸立てに適している装置を担当している人が休暇中であり、さらに装置は実験の予定が目いっぱい入っていてどうやらここ一週間はどこも使えさせてもらえそうにはない。これまた運がない。

そして最後にすごいラッキーでもう一つ装置が一日空いているということが分かった。装置担当者がご厚意で一日使わせてくれることが分かったが、その装置はあまり軸立てには向いていない。特に現段階の軸立て状況においては絶望を感じるほど。案の定、一晩を費やしても軸立ができなかった。

さらにはいま置いている磁場装置を今日金曜日に取りだして、我々のゴニオメーターを取り付ける。そして軸立てを我々の装置で行いさらに時間の都合で月曜日にまた磁場装置を取り付けるという案もあるが。先ほど言ったように磁場装置を入れるだけで一日作業なのであるから、この案は大変なリソースを使う。

やれるだけのことはしたがダメだったということだ。仕方ないので私の実験をしているところだが、あまりよい成果も得られる保証もないが。これだけあれもこれもやってダメということも珍しい

今回学んだことは以下のことである。準備は大事なのは言うまでもない。一方で磁場を使える状況になったことでチャンスでもあったととらえられる。なぜならそのユーザーが使えず自分が使える状況になったから。そこであまり良い案がなかった自分がまずいとおもう。したがって、私はチャンスを生かす準備をしておくべきだったということ。

このためには普段から良い単結晶試料をたくさん準備しておき時間があるときにはなるべく軸立てを完璧な状態にしておくことが大事。さらに磁場にも載せられるようにアルミ板をすべて使ってさらに磁場にも対応できるように準備しておく。これからもよいサイエンスをしていく準備をきちんとしておこう。今回やることになった実験からも良い結果も出るかもしれない。これからも質の高いサイエンスを頑張っていこう！

In the last post (https://www.shinichiroyano.com/2022/01/13/how-to-become-an-associate-professor1-2/), I focused on the process and documents for promotion to become an associate professor. In this post, I will write more in detail. This is just one example so please don’t take it too seriously. In my opinion, what makes the candidate great are the following four things. They are the number and the quality of papers, the granted grants, the labs he has set up in the university, the number of PhD students he educated and will educate. There are other achievements, such as the number of conferences he organize, the number of papers or proposals he reviewed but I believe these four achievements are where he has done so well.

In his short biography, he got a bachelor and a master degree in China, and a PhD in Germany. He spent another year in Germany. Then, he moved to the U.S. for two years, France for three years, Spain for one year, and finally he moved back to China to be an assistant professor in his current university. He looks like 5-6 years senior to me. To be honest, I felt that it could be a bit late for him to be an associate professor. But I thought there might be some reasons. For example, he might have needed to stay in the school for 5 years to be qualified to get a professorship in the university.

Firstly, the number of papers, he has written more than 110 papers. I don’t think I can get to this level in the next five years. He wrote 34 papers as the first other, 43 papers as the corresponding author. This is a huge number. He seems to be producing 10-15 papers every year. I don’t think I can reach that level. I have to think very very hard to find ways to get to that level if I really want to. But anyway, the number is not important, at least I can do is to write more papers as usual. On the other hand, by comparing his and my profiles, I found that my citation is constantly improving. So I should keep writing papers, especially high-quality papers. That’s what I can do. In addition to the papers, I am impressed that he wrote patents as well and got awarded from a bank in China. These industrial partnerships are great. He is not only a scientist working in the lab but also collaborating with the industry. I should find a way to do a similar thing so I should find more project cold triple-axis can support.

Secondly, he has been granted over 7.2 million USD since he has moved to the university. 7.2 million for 5-6 years. This is a big number. The funding sources are local government, university, and the Chinese government. I am not sure how much money one researcher who does experiments are getting in Australia or Japan. What I learnt here is it is not important to the amount of money for his grant. I believe an attitude to keep asking money to create good science of our own is important. I didn’t have a vision like him, it is great to invest money for great science if it is properly planned. Like him, it is important to keep asking to create a good science so the society can invest their money in a good project. I will work hard to challenge this.

Thirdly, he has set up three labs by using these fundings. They are a physical property measurement lab, an in-house X-ray diffraction lab, and a single crystal growth lab. I can see the single crystal growth lab he made is high quality even in the international standard. These three labs are enough to produce scientific papers. I believe they can produce a nice paper by just using the data obtained from these labs in the university. He has set up these labs in the last five years. I am impressed. He got money outside and inside of the university and made high-quality labs. I don’t know how many experimentalists get funding like this in Japan, Australia, or Taiwan. I will look into it. I believe he could leave great assets for the university. It is like investing money in a startup company.

Finally, he has educated or has been educating 14 PhD students. This is an impressive number for just 5 years. It is not thinkable in Australia, Japan, or Taiwan. It seems the Chinese government selected the candidate’s lab to invest in, they wanted to make it to a world-class key research platform. Maybe this is partially the reason they are getting more students last two years. And I have to mention that, I have worked with his students occasionally, they are doing great.

These fours things above are I wanted to leave the comment for the report. I don’t think I can be like him considering my situation. On the other hand, I have learnt so much about what direction I should take in the next 5 years. As a scientist, the most important and the most difficult job is to write a good paper with a high standard and write constantly. I will push myself harder. Others, like getting the funding, managing the instrument, and supporting users are also important works. I knew this already of course but I have to push myself harder to do better. It was a pleasure to read and referee his achievements, I learnt so much from this evaluation.

I have just submitted a report and wrote a recommendation letter for the promotion to the rank of associate professor position at some university in some country. It was a great pleasure to perform this review for one of the outstanding scientist’s works and achievements. On the other hand, I have learnt so much and got a chance to contemplate my career and the strategy I will take from now on. I believe how hard to become an associate professor in the university depends on where you are and what academic field you are in. However, maybe some of you could find something here so I leave my notes here.

Firstly, before the evaluation, the candidate asked me if I can be a referee for the committee of his promotion and I can write a recommendation letter. I said, yes. I was surprised to learn that the candidate needs to collect 18 recommendation letters. Non-co-authored scientists with the candidate have to write these recommendation letters. That is a great number.

Then, the university emailed me and asked me to be the referee of the promotion. The promotion committee in the university chose 12 referees to help them to evaluate the candidate’s work to make their decision. So I was one of them. The committee asked me to submit a report. By doing so, I was offered 170 USD for this work.

The committee asked me to write a report in terms of the points below,

1. The description of my relationship with the candidates. 
2. The comment on the extent to which the research achievements of the candidate. Does he/she meet the international academic standard and benchmarks in the field, especially in terms of the quantity and quality of publications?
3. The comment on the candidate’s impacts and potential impacts on the field.
4. How would you rate the research performance of Prof. ****** in comparison with the candidate’s peers who are in the similar career stage?
5. Considering the research performance of the candidate, how likely would he be promoted at your institute?

These five documents are provided to evaluate his work,

1. Curriculum Vitae of the candidate
2. Self-assessment Statement
3. Research Profile
4. Five representive scientic papers
5. Teaching portofolio

1 and 2 are basically the same, 1 is provided by the university however it looks like the candidate filled in the form. 2 is much easier to read so I basically read this document to evaluate his work. I should’ve done it in the first place.

These documents provided information about his educational background, the history of fundings he has been granted, the students he has educated (from undergraduates to PhD), publications and patents, the courses he has taught in the university, the summary of his scientific achievements, the awards, and so on.

3 is more objective data. The document provides the number of his publications as the first author, the corresponding author, the total number of papers including coauthored papers, and its citations. Also, the document provided the link of the candidate’s profiles on GoogleScholar and Web of Science and so on so I could check all these publications, citations, and numbers.

4 is just 5 papers selected by the candidate. 5 is his teaching portfolio.

By reading all the documents, I could understand his contribution to science and the university. I was asked to prepare the report in one and a half months. I have written the report in English with about 10k words or so. The recommendation letter has the letterhead from our institute and I gave my signature before I send it to the university by email. I could finish two weeks before the deadline. So I can do more of my own scientific work now.

It is getting longer now so I will write more in detail in the next post. I won’t share any insider or academic information of the candidate however I will provide what I have learnt. I have learnt so much by reviewing his achievements. And, I could get some ideas how I spend time for the next 5 years. I learnt it is not easy to become an associate professor at a recognized university. I learnt how hard competition is in the academic world, especially the international academic world. Next time, I will look more into the numbers such as the number of publications, the number of PhD students, the number of granted fundings. So I can analyse my own position and find some tactics. So I can discuss here what do I do to get the level in the next 5 years or so.