Feshbach Resonances in Soft X-ray–Induced O2 Dissociation

I worked with Fellows Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn from the Kepteyn-Murnane Group. I was originally creating this graphic to be published in an Science magazine article (Science 322, 1081 (2008)). Science is also making this visual available as a PowerPoint slide for teaching purposes.

The graphic explains the Photoionization. After a X-ray knocks an electron out of an O₂ molecule, it takes more than 300 fs before another electron is ejected and the molecule falls apart. The internal state of the molecule prevents the second electron from being ejected until the O nuclei move at least 30 Å (3 nm) apart. Check out the Science article for the research and the JILA Light & Matter article for a more generalized explaination of the research.

• Clients: Kapteyn-Murnane Group


• Related Links: Science article (Science 322, 1081 (2008)), JILA Research Highlight article

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

I worked closely with Fellow Tom Perkins, Gavin King, and Allison Churnside. I was initially rendering an image for the JILA Light & Matter Spring 2009 issue and then after I was done, talk of using the image for everything popped up. I was excited about the possibility of getting the cover of Nano Letters, but the publishers at Nano Letters said they already have all their cover images for the whole year or something along those lines. I found this to be kinda weird and was wondering how they actually run their publication. Do they know exactly what research to publish almost a full year in advance? Regardless Science picked up the image for their Editor's choice which was also pretty neat.

I have worked on Tom Perkin's stuff on past projects, so I was familiar with some of the visual and potential animation objectives. The intial meeting with Gavin and Tom was pretty quick. I decided I wanted to use Maya for this project because I knew I could make a pretty beautiful rendering pretty quickly AND I could make an animation from 3D file when I had the extra time. The shapes were pretty easy to model (and I already had some 2D illustrator line work that I did previously to use for the "revolve" procedure in Maya). I spent most of my time working on textures, lighting, and colors. I was pretty happy with my lighting. I hate texturing in Maya, but I was able to get the results I wanted pretty efficiently. Of course I am running Maya 8.5 which is two versions old now and no longer supported by Autodesk. So Maya crashed a multiple times during this project which caused me an extra 2 days worth of Maya time. I think I am going finally break down get Maya 2009 Unlimited because the problems I am experienceing will never get fixed unless I upgrade (UPGRAYED!). I didn't use Mental Ray render because it was artifacting some weird stuff in there and I didn't have time to debugg that (and I would have to redo all my textures also). Hopefully the newer verion of Maya will support my current hardware configuration and work well with the latest OS that I am running on both the Mac and PC systems. All n All the final results were pretty good and I was happy with it. I am glad Perkins Group liked results as well and that NIST picked up the image for their press release thing. Hopefully I will get around to the animation part of the project after I get back from my trip this April.

Clients: Tom Perkins Group

Related Links: Science (Volume 323, Number 5922, Issue of 27 March 2009), NIST Tech Beat, Bio Optics World,In Sciences, Nano Werk, Shanghi Institute of Ceramics Chinese Academy of Science (SICCAS), Thomas Net, R & D Magazine, News Wise, Materials Research Society (MRS), JILA Research Highlight article

SQUID(s) (superconducting quantum interference devices)

I worked closely with Manuel Castellanos-Beltran on this project. JILA had research highlight article for this research, but I wasn't able to make graphic for this research concept at that time because of tight deadlines. Manuel came back to me a few weeks later and he told me that NSF was interviewing him and Konrad about their research. He was asking me about making a visual that would explain their research to wider audience.

I remember reading the papers and articles for this research, and I thought it would be a pretty hard to visualize some of the underlying concepts as a single image. Konrad and Manuel already had some pretty nice looking SEM images of the SQUID(s), so Manuel mentioned that an artist conception rendering of SQUID(s) might be a good thing for the NSF article. The SEM images of the SQUID(s) are interesting pictures, but they are kinda hard to interpret the actual shape and structure of the SQUID(s) themselves. So I proposed to make isometric illustration of the SQUID(s) which would see the shapes and pieces of the SQUIDs. Isometric illustrations are common for engineering diagrams, architecture, and manual diagrams. The SEM images kinda make the SQUIDs look like one piece when they are actually made up of multiple (very thin) layers and pieces. I did all the line work in Illustrator using the SSR Method and then used Photoshop for the final touches. I kept my colors palette to greens and blues to relate more to the original SEM images.

Read the NSF article to find more about the SQUID(s) research. The NSF article is pretty good with explaining the concepts to a general audience.

Clients: Konrad Lehnert and Manuel Castellanos-Beltran

Related Links: NSF, Research.gov, Nanotechnology Now, JILA Research Highlight article

JILA MONSTRs laser photography

This was a fun photo shoot involving lasers from the JILA MONSTR system. I actually did this photo shoot the day before I left for the Christmas holiday (i think it might have been Christmas eve) which was a perfect time since everybody was gone and nobody was currently running experiments with the MONSTR system. Twas the night before Christmas, And all through the JILA hallways. Not a creature (or grad) was-ah-stirring. Not even a mouse… ha! sorry i had to do it, but it really did feel like that at JILA on that day...really. Nobody was there EXCEPT for Alan Bristow. Alan helped with the photo shoot so it turned out to be a really fun collaboration (plus he had the keys to the labs). AND he brought his sweet lovely precious, expensive DSLR Nikon camera with a decent lens! I only have SRO's lame Canon Rebel XT DSLR which is no where close to Alan's model. The Rebel XT that I use at JILA is "ok" and it works fine, but it is really a cheaper scaled back version of the more professional standard Canon 20D SLR which is what I currently use for my personal projects (with SIGMA lens). After being familiar with the Canon 20D and 30D models (and even the Nikon DSLRs too), lets just say Rebel XT has many short comings when it comes to its color calibrations, light metering system, and its auto focusing matrix (you get what you paid for is the only thing that comes to mind). I inherited the Rebel XT from my predecessor when I first start working at JILA, and I have been putting a new pro DSLR on my JILA Christmas wish list every year but the JILA Santa fails to deliver a sweet new Canon DSLR under the tree. Anyways......Alan had his camera, so I quickly abandoned the Rebel XT in favor of getting to use his camera. Alan and I were pretty excited about the photo shoot because it was problem solving game. It wasn't just a regular photo shoot where you just set up some lights and point-n-shoot. We wanted to turn on the lasers and doing some laser trace photography.

I heard about some of the methods for doing this, but I never had the chance to actually try it out. Even when the lasers are turned on, you can't see them with the naked eye. JILA MONSTR has all sorts of red and green lasers going every which way. Basically we setup the lights the way we wanted and then opened the shutter for a super long exposure. So we would put a white piece of paper attached the end of a thing stick or wire and trace the path with the paper. The only major problem was the tripod which was "janky" and broken, so it was pretty tough keeping it from falling apart. The shoot went well and we eventually got all the types of exposures I wanted to make my final blend of the images together.

Special thanks goes to Alan Bristow for collaborating with me on this photo shoot and for turning on the JILA MONSTR. If you are curious about what the heck is a JILA MONSTR and why its such a beast, then read the Highlight article below. JILA actually has two of these laser systems machined by the JILA machine shope.

Clients: Ralph Jimenez and Steve Cundiff

Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Quantum Dots

I worked with David Nesbitt who explained to me how quantum dots worked and how his research involved quantum dots. I made a simulation/animation that shows what turns a quantum dot off and on, but I haven't had time to finish that part of the project yet. My main focus to was to finish the still graphic before the deadline for the print issue of JILA Light and Matter and for the website. I really didn't know much about quantum dots before David's explanation and his research. I did some background research and I found out that quantum dots are fairly popular and that there is a lot of excitement about finding out more about quantum dots and their applications. It seems like one of the main questions centered around quantum dots was their ability to turn off and on and how to predict this (and potentially control it). So I wanted to make the visual that explains some the mechanisms behind the turning off and on feature. Its actually a very complex process, so it was difficult trying to figure out a clean and accessible way of explaining the process visually.

I use Maya for this project because I wanted model the quantum dots structure which consisted of a interior of cadmium seleide (CdSe) and then surrounded by a shell of zinc sulfide (ZnS).

Client: David Nesbitt

Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Fermions Transition Collisions

• Clients: Jun Ye Group


• Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Time Poster - Governor's Research Impact Award

This a poster ( print size 3ft x 4ft) that I designed for Fellow Judah Levine for the Governor's Research Impact Award that he received Feb 17, 2009. The print version came out really well and actually looks better printed than in the digital format (usually its the other way around). The JILA chair and Judah came to me and asked me about doing a poster for his nomination ( and eventually onto being the finalist for the award) and I said I would do it. I was naturally excited about the prospect of designing a poster and doing the print work; however the problem was I was having too many ideas come into my head and I was having a problem trying to organize the information in a clear and clever manner. Of course Judah came by and made a quick list of items that needed to be on the poster. It was a start, but it didn't really help me because the ordering of the list didn't make much sense to me.

First things first. I need to absorb the idea and brainstorm. So I took this scratch paper list, looked it over, and spent all weekend brainstorming, organizing, and researching, and sketching. I spent a lot time on this part so that I could get a design that would work, grow, and would be able to finish within a week and a half. I had to think about my audience which were going to political types and business types.....basically as some scientists would put it "normal" people who only know a little bit of science. I had to think about the concept of time or precision time that Judah is involved with. I had to think about how to include both organizations of NIST and JILA into the design. I also had to think about whether I would need setup photo shoots or just use stock photography or both or none at all. think think think...draw, design, draw...... think think think

Finally I arrived several potential designs that I could really work into something for this project. I didn't arrive at any one golden perfect idea, but I figured I had the workings of several malleable ideas. I was pretty proud of myself by the end of that Sunday. I made a quick mock up of one of my more favorite ideas. I liked it, but it was kinda intense and radical which is why I liked it i guess. I showed a NYC designer friend of mine Tommy E. (i call him my Marc Jacobs designer) who was online working over the weekend with me. He was there chatting with me all weekend and he wanted to see my design. He peer pressured me into showing him my design. Short story: he commented that it was really a interesting idea and look...very Dada...very minimalistic ...very Sharp edges and lines. He caught the hourglass concept and etc. I said exactly! He mentioned that I should play around with making the edges smoother and more shading, but i said yea and no. While i understand that circles (hence clocks) and hour glass form itself have very smooth structures, I wanted the edges to be sharp and push the colors to be more flat to allude to the precision of time as a constant and not variable (as in curvatures and shading). So the main center graphic references to the abstraction of several time pieces such as hour glass, clock, interval rotation, and even the sun. I liked it because the shapes weren't directly saying what it was in a literal format. Depending on how you interpret the shapes you could arrive at any one or all those conclusions. Anyways I placed the two organization on either halves of the shape to make it look like both NIST and JILA work together on precision time. I organized essentially two contrasting columns on the sides of poster. The right column side is for "Time Services" that NIST and JILA actually provide. The left column side is for "Time Service Clients" which are types of people or fields of interest that actually depend on NIST and JILA's time services.

I felt pretty good about the various ideas I was working with. The next part was involving my boss (she is the writer in our office and likes to be involved with anything involving written content). I figured this would be a great project to team build together which I desperately needed help on because I was juggling several other projects with tight deadlines for some of the other Fellows at the same time. I figure I had enough rough visual ideas that it would help jump start dialogue with my boss about "melding" the visual components with the potential content. I like thinking and designing within a collaborative team. So that Monday I eagerly set up a meeting with my boss to show her my visual ideas and all my notes and concepts for the project. Well things didn't turn out so well. She looked at my sketches and I explained all my ideas. She said it was interesting, but she said it in that hesitant way. Designers know this reaction from clients. Then she said that it didn't look like it would really work (and this i am assuming was for all my sketch ideas) and that Judah would surely not care for it. BASICALLY rejected. At this point I was fine with that response and I figured she would have this sorta opinion or not get it... which happens. I figured "great!" , now lets deconstruct and/or reconstruct something and figure something out that WILL work. But this didn't happen either and i wasn't able to get tangible feedback. So I left and went to my office trying to figure out why all my designs was treated with doubt. Felt like someone throat punched me (ask ian about throat punching. ian's stories seem stick in my mind in an uncanny and unhealthy way sometimes). Anyways, Judah happened to come by the office "great! rub the failure directly in my face with the Fellow also". Well Judah took a quick look and said "Wow this is great". I thought he was being sarcastic or just nice. But i looked at him and he genuinely "figured" the designed out. I even asked several direct questions to test him. He knew exactly what i was trying to do with the shapes and organization. He just said keep going with it, and I was like GREAT! I felt like i got my voice back and I could get to work with some tangible feedback and support. From then I basically worked on it directly with Judah and relied on his feedback and opinions.

My design was throat punched and then resurrected. The main point is that I finished the project as I projected and everybody liked the final product (well nobody said anything negative about it abo). The poster was on display at the governor's mansion or wherever the award ceremonial was done.

I kept getting some really good comments from the other staff, grads, post docs, and Fellows. Thanks for the support guys! The poster was also on displayed in JILA reception lobby. If you get a chance, go check it out because the physical version is definitely better than the digital version. I was walking past and I overheard a post doc from one of the groups talking to his a colleague say "Yeah its intense!". I just smirked and continued walking down the hallway almost about laugh out loud with the feeling that I got away with something (making it eye catching and not traditional). Its interesting seeing people view my art work and hearing their reactions with my wondering ear.

Eight Days A Week did the printing, and they did a pretty decent job. Also I didn't realize that 3ft by 4ft is actually pretty big....physically. When I was designing I kept visualizing a more standard poster size; the kind you see hanging up in a classroom or something. I realized how big it was when I was printing a proto-type with JILA's printers and it was taking a long while to do.

All the art and photographs were done by me except for a few off location photographs that were provided by: NIST, NASA/JPL-Caltech NAIC - Arecibo Observatory (a facility of the NSF), and the close shot of the wall clock was done by Sanja Gjenero.

If you want a larger higher resolution version to read the details, just email me. Also Judah might put the pdf up on his website at some point.

• Client: Judah Levine


• Related Links: Press Release - CO Federal Research Labs Receive Gov's Award, ThomasNet; Industrial News Room, NewsWise, eScience News, Daily Camera

Optical traps for single molecule biophysics

I worked closely with Fellow Tom Perkins on this techincal illustration of biophysical signals and optical-trapping geometries. I made the illustration late in 2008, but it did not get published to Laser & Photonics Reviews until Feb 2009. The top image is the final layout for the journal article with some visual adjustments by Tom Perkins.

Caption Text for Figure 3:
(online color at: www.lpr-journal.org) Comparison of different biophysical signals (a–g) and optical-trapping geometries (i–vii) used to study nucleic acids and nucleic-acid enzymes. (a) A “tug-of-war” signal between the biological molecule and the trap develops as an anchored protein (gold cone) moves along a nucleic acid (red and green) pulling the bead (blue sphere) in an optical trap (pink). (b) A ”conversion” signal uses the conversion from dsDNA (red and green) to ssDNA (green), or the reverse, to change the elastic properties of the tether and thereby measure enzymatic motion. (c) Opening of a nucleic-acid hairpin (through increased force, enzyme motion, or protein melting) leads to more single-stranded nucleic acid under tension and, therefore, motion of the trapped bead. (d) A “popping” signal occurs when sequestered nucleic-acid segments are released as the force in the trap is increased. This signal can be used to measure binding or looping of a protein (purple). (e) Fluorescent tracking of the motion of an enzyme (red cone) either by dye (green halos) displacement or a small fluorescent particle (green sphere) attached directly to the enzyme under study. (f) Fluorescence-resonance energy transfer (FRET) of two nearby fluorophores (D and A, donor and acceptor) leads to emission of red (acceptor) light if the fluorophores are close together. If the strands were separated by force or enzymatic motion, the FRET efficiency would change. (g) A torsional signal (enzyme rotational movement, nucleic-acid supercoiling) can be obtained by using birefringent particles (grey cylinder) and an optical trap which measures torque. (i) The nucleic acid is stretched between an anchor point on the surface and the trapped bead in the surface-coupled geometry. (ii) A micropipette holds one bead via suction while the other bead is optically trapped. (iii) Fluid flow (arrows) extends DNA attached to an optically trapped bead. (iv) Two traps holding two beads connected by a nucleic-acid molecule, often called a ”dumbbell” geometry. (v) Vertical stretching of a nucleic acid, similar to (i), but pulling straight up. (vi) A double dumbbell geometry, or ”quad” trap, allows precise manipulation and measurement of two nucleic-acid molecules for studying a protein (purple) which binds the two molecules together. (vii) Pulling a DNA molecule through a nanopore using an optical trap. Figures are schematic representations from references found in the main text. The biophysical signals shown can be measured through a variety of trapping geometries. For example, the enzyme moving along a nucleic acid which creates the “tug-of-war” signal could be anchored to a cover slip (i), a bead held by a micropipette (ii), or a second optically trapped bead (iv).

The Full citation: Laser & Photonics Reviews [article Fig 3], "Optical traps for single molecule biophysics: a primer", February 2009, Vol 3, Issue 1-2, Page 207

Client: Thomas Perkins

Related Links: Laser & Photonics Reviews article (Feb 2009, Vol 3 Iss 1-2, Pg 203-220) article

Chemcial Physics Letters - front cover

My art work is on the cover of "Chemical Physics Letters" (January 13, 2009 issue)! I worked closely with Mike Thorpe in designing the cover image. This is my first CPL cover, so I was pretty excited about doing it.

Mike showed me some his figures and graphics he worked on and we figured out a combination of elements that we wanted to emphasize. The covers of CPL tend to have a wide range of graphics that can be really just technical graphs and dense figures usually submitted by the researchers themselves. I thought this would be a good opportunity to make an awesome graphic with some simple schematic elegance. Yes, I understand the typical reader of CPL probably doesn't care whats on the cover nor about the accessibility of the information that could be gathered from the image. Regardless I wanted to make a graphic that visually worthy for a cover AND be able to be used by Jun Ye's group for whatever purpose (website, powerpoint, etc). Plus, I believe the visual front of someone's research should be well considered and accessible. I decide to make a really clean figure-like image of the experiment and showoff the actual end result data. The resulting image data is depicting the interactions of the C₂H₂.

Mike did me the great favor of letting me know of this cover project early on and made himself available to me. This gave me the time and feedback to design and create the graphic pretty efficiently. Also I was balancing several other projects at once, so it was nice to be able to plan for the project balance. I used Maya to model the C₂H₂ at different angles and to get the correct lighting on the molecules. I used Illustrator for the line work and then Photoshop to compile the image together and put on the finishing touches (lighting, texture, etc).

This is my fourth cover in the past few months. Covers are fun to design and produce, and I am happy that they are all different and focus on several of JILA's major research topics. My goal was to make all my covers different AND for different types of publications that range from main stream science magazines to hard science journals.

• Client: Mike Thorpe, Jun Ye Group


• Related Links: Chemical Physics Letters

Nation's backup time scale WWV station photoshoot

Fellow Judah Levine invited me to come out to the WWV remote transmission station, located 12 miles northwest of Fort Collins to shoot some photos for the upcoming JILA Light & Matter article titled "Spare Time". Naturally I was pretty excited about getting away from the desk (which is currently messy with my sketches from other other projects) and checking out this backup time scale WWV. I have heard about it, but I never experienced it myself. Driving out there in a government suburban with computer parts in the back felt like we playing a part in some kind of X-Files episode. Questions like "what does a place housing the backup time scale look like?, What consitutes a time scale?, Is this location top secret?" kept popping in my head. Of course the WWV station rather simple looking, but if you are geek like me then you get excited that time is counting right there in front of you and who is depending on these numbers. The WWV site is really just a bunch of radio towers and building fool of computers and vintage equipment. The computer vault itself was kinda crazy. I felt like it could absorb a missle strike. There were a lot of water bottles in the room, and I was just imagining that were for the person who would have lock themselves in the vault to protect the Nations Time or else all hell would break out. But no, they were just there to absorb the massive amounts of heat that computers were generating. Regardless it was really fun and see a new part of Colorado.

I really did feel like Fox Mulder from X-files and that I needed a gun (and having Scully next time giving me sound and objective advice about my suspicions would be pretty hot too) because some aliens or foriegn governement agency was about come fuck with AMERICA's TIME....also i had my camera so I could finally get the proof that Scully is always nagging me about.

• Clients: Judah Levine


• Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Quantum Computing

Fellow Jun Ye came to talk to Julie about his "vacation" at Caltech where he worked with former JILA Fellow Peter Zoller on coming up with the basic theoretical framework for a quantum computer. I was asked to make a visual that explain's Ye's and Zoller's potential quantum computer. So I fashioned this graphic after doing some 3D Maya modelings that depicits how the optical lattic is used to cycle between various of combinations of the atoms and their spins. Read the article and look to future journal publications. I hope Jun Ye continues his quantum computing stuff, so I can make some awesome motion graphics for it. I already have some of the 3D modeling done. The visual got a little complex with the n-bit register formula thrown in there, but Jun Ye insisted that right type of people will know what that means. I think Jun Ye, wanted me to put that formula on the computer screen, so he can use it for powerpoint presentations.

• Clients: Jun Ye Group


• Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Science News front cover

My art work is on the cover of "Science News" (December 20, 2008 issue)! I think it turned out pretty good. I originally made the rendering to be submitted for the front cover of Science for Jun Ye's and Debbie Jin's article, but it unfortunately was not selected. Well I'm glad it was used for Science News cover instead. The article "Physicists Hot for Ultracold" by Laura Sanders is the article that Jun Ye was quoted in. I highly recommend you reading this article for those of you who are curious about whats up with Ultracold quantum physics AND don't usuaully read the hardcore science journal publications. Laura did a pretty good job writing article in terms that the mainstream public can understand.

I already posted a blog entry about the details of the image titled "Dense Gas of Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules"

• Client: NIST,Jun Ye Group, Debbie Jin Group, Kang-Kuen Ni


• Related Links: Science News article, NIST, JILA Research Highlight article, National Science Foundation Article, Research.gov Article, Joint Quantum Institute article, CU News Release article, e! Science News article, Science Daily article, EurekAlert article, PhysOrg news article, First Science News article

Science & Technology Review - N204 Cover Image

(published Science & Technology Review cover)

Dr. Wen Li sent me the cover of "Science & Technology Review" which is a Chinese scientific journal. I already posted a blog entry about the N₂O₄ titled "Science Cover and Figures - N₂O₄ Probed using High Harmonic Generation" so check out the details from there.

I don't know if I will be able to score a physical print version of the journal, but Im going to try. If anybody runs across one and doesn't want their copy, let me know.

• Client: Kapteyn and Murnane Group, Wen Li


• Related Links: Science article, PhysOrg News article, Information Center for Basic Science news article, Science & Technology Review (http://www.kjdb.org/cn/dqml.asp)

Science cover and figures - N2O4 Probed Using High Harmonic Generation

(published Science cover)

(published Science schematic and graph)

(mock up idea for Science cover)

(mock up idea for Science cover)

My art work is on the cover of "Science" (November 21, 2008 issue)! This is my first cover for Science, so I am pretty excited about it. I made several other potential Science covers within the past year, but they didn't get selected (i think they were pretty good one's too which you can find in this blog). Apparently it is a pretty competitive process to get a cover on Science. Anyways... now for the details:

I worked closely with Dr. Wen Li, Fellow Margaret Murnane, and Fellow Henry Kapteyn. I was originally just helping with the experimental schematic figure and the graph figure (the second image), and that expanded to coming up with cover images for Science. The schematic and graph figure was mainly done in Illustrator and I was mainly focusing on making the schematic pretty clear and clean looking so that two images could be group well each other. I am really happy how the schematic and graph figure images tie very closely to the cover imagery of the selected cover. The version in this blog is slightly different than the Science published version, but only a few of the colors were changed. The Science article and the caption text that was publish explains the schematic and graph figure pretty well if you are curious about it.

Covers: Why yes it was a pretty intensive process. It started out pretty simply with the schematic which was really just illustrating and arranging the objects in logical space. The real question next was how to describe the research concepts where the paper was titled "Time-Resolved Dynamics in N₂O₄ Probed Using High Harmonic Generation". This was a pretty daunting task, but Wen really worked with me and explained some of the core concepts to me. This whole project really turned out to be a really productive team play between me, Wen, Margaret, and Henry. It was the only way this project was really going to succeed. So it all started with Wen making his own sketch to show me some of his ideas. This helped me realize and focus on some of the key visual points for the rest of the project. I was really glad when I saw Wen come in with his own sketch. I usually encourage the people I am working with to sketch anything they can as part of the initial brain storming precess. Some researchers get shy about their drawing skills, but I keep telling them that it will help immensely no matter what they draw. So the brainstorming process went on for a while actually. I would make some mock and test renderings and we would get new ideas and I would try some new objectives. From the start I knew that I would be working in 3D environment, so I mainly used Maya and Photoshop for all the cover images. Working in a 3D environment paided off because it was much easier to make changes and create new variations in 3D package like Maya than if I were to draw/illustrate it.

to keep things short and sweet here, I will write briefly about each of the images in this blog.

The cover that was selected (top image), was showing the molecule N₂O₄ in two states where one is in an "excited" state (the one closes to front). I thought it would be a good idea to make the connection of these two different states of the N₂O₄ molecule to the actual data set of the High Harmonic Generation from the vibrating N₂O₄. Basically I wanted the viewer to be able to see where in the 3D space of the data that molecules were changing during the peaks of the data. The first step was to convert the data from Matlab to a 3d files that I could use to import into the Maya. I have done something similar to this before for PNAS figure and cover, so I passed Wen the matlab script to adapted to this his data. Wen converted the data from Matlab to a .OBJ file and I then imported it into Maya. The next step was to model the N₂O₄ molecules based on some information Wen provided me. It wasn't too bad to model in Maya (the excited state one was a little bit more complicated b/c the shapes were a little more atypical). After that I did a lot render tests for the lighting, colors, and textures. Then I used photoshop to add the final detail touches.

The other two images were mockups that we submitted to science as well. These images were basically showing the general and simple idea that the N₂O₄ molecules were being manipulated by several laser beams. They are both similar but one really emphaises how a few N₂O₄ molecules gets "trapped" in the laser beams amongst a cluster of N₂O₄ molecules. I thought these turned out pretty well and the main goal was to make a really simple visual concept that would work for a Science Cover. The main goal for all the covers was to show as much of the science as possible without overloading the viewer with too much technical jargon, arrows, and labels. We submitted all three of these as potential covers and the selected the top one because it showed the most science as directly related to the research. I was glad they picked that one because I was pretty attached to it myself. I liked all of them, but that is probably because I get personally attached to my 3D models and line work.

I really enjoyed working with Wen, Margaret, and Henry. I was also interacting with the art director and editors at Science via the phone for this project. They had some very postive comments about my work and efforts which made feel pretty good. I even blushed on the other end of the phone (good thing it wasn't a video conference or in person ha!). It feels good to finally get the cover and i am planning on trying to get few more Science covers in the future. Im hoping one of the Fellows at JILA discovers how to Time Travel. I bet I can make a bad ass cover for Science for that one.

• Client: Kapteyn and Murnane Group, Wen Li


• Related Links: Science article, PhysOrg News article, Information Center for Basic Science news article, Science & Technology Review (http://www.kjdb.org/cn/dqml.asp), Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (SIMS) of the National Research Council news article, JILA Research Highlight article

Dense Gas of Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules

(mock up Science cover)

(Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules flow process)

(Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules flow process NIST version)

(mock up Science cover - ideaA)

(mock up Science cover - ideaB)

(mock up Science cover - ideaA+B)

(mock up Science cover - idea A+littleB)

I was asked create an illustration that explains the process of Fellow Jun Ye’s and Fellow Debbie Jin's Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules. I was originally just working with Kang-Kuen Ni, Jun Ye, and Debbie Jin, and then some people at NIST heard I was making some graphics for this scientific breakthrough, so it turned out to be collaborative effort with NIST as well. Jun and Debbie wanted the the graphic for their own presentations and press releases. NIST wanted an illustration that could be used for the news press release that would be easily understood by the general public. Jun and Debbie's research was being published in Science Express very very quickly, so this project turned out to be a pretty big with some tight deadlines. Everybody wanted something for their thing (websites, press releases, presentations, print, etc ), so it was kinda difficult meeting everybody's demands and needs in a very short time frame. It was a tedious process, but in the end I think the results were pretty positive. Everybody was running around everywhere and about everything. I was getting phones calls from NIST everyday and everybody was updating me about what the Science editors were saying or doing or whatever.

I was also asked to make a Science cover within 1-2 days (i think i really had a 24 hr turnaround) before it was absolutely due. Usually I need a little more time to make cover art, so I did the best I could. Since the deadline was almost immediate, I tried to recycle some of the imagery that I already made from the Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules flow process. I liked my ideas, but everybody had their opinions which just led to making multiple cover mockups. I had an amazing idea that was going to look beautiful and simple (basically bad ass), but I would need to do it with Maya with at least 4-5 days R&D time. So I did the best I could and developed the mock up (top image) using Illustrator. I thought it was pretty quick and simple solution in the end; however Science didn't selected it. I have been researching Science's past covers and their asethetics they go for which appears to be pretty fancy 3D renderings (and ontop of that, they were mainly of biology and chemistry concepts). So getting cover with the Ultracold 'Polar' Molecules was pretty slim to begin with. Nonetheless, I thought I came up with some pretty good visual ideas for covers given the time frame I had to work with (and the amount people involved).

It was fun and I wouldn't mind doing it again. The only thing I would ask for the next time was a little more time (and maybe their first born sons. however i think if they gave me a few of their grad student slaves, that could work out alright too. ha!)

The graphics were published in a lot of places, and I have to find them all. So I will be updating the links below as quickly as I can. If anybody finds a place where the images were used, let me know. Once the graphics get on the NIST's press release, a lot of different news sites pick up graphic for their reports.

• Client: NIST,Jun Ye Group, Debbie Jin Group, Kang-Kuen Ni


• Related Links: NIST, JILA Research Highlight article, National Science Foundation Article, Research.gov Article, Joint Quantum Institute article, CU News Release article, e! Science News article, Science Daily article, EurekAlert article, PhysOrg news article, First Science News article

Nanomechanical Beam

John Teufel from the Konrad Lehnert group came to me about fixing up this scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image. I believe Cindy Regal took the original SEM image. SEM images the sample surface by scanning it with a high-energy beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern. I just basically helped him clean up the image and colorized it to help emphasize areas of interest in the image and to bring more of 3d depth back into the image. The image is taken from a top view angle. The area of the interest in the image is the very thin string strip run inning horizontally from the square like plates. Thats where all the action is taking place.

• Clients: Konrad Lehnert group, John Teufel


• Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article, NanoTechWeb.org article

CO2 Splash Collisions

I worked closely with Brad Perkins from the David Nesbitt Group. Well I actually started this project in December 2007, but my project queue was being overloaded with immediate deadlines from the Jun Ye group, Kapteyn Groups, and yes yes even NIST. So I put this project on pause for about 5 months which was fine because Brad's research was being embargo by the publishers forever (don't ask me why). The embargo was just lifted early this august 2008 which was just in time for the new JILA Light & Matter issue. blah blah this project took a while b/c of the dynamics and weird publishers holding onto the rights.

Here are the technical details behind this image. Ok so Brad has all this data (yea numbers and stuff) and put them into a computer program called "VMD (version 1.6.5)" which converts the data trajectories to visual simulation in 3D. This was great because he showed me what he rendered, but they didn't look that good and looked pretty blocky. VMD is open sourced and sometimes updated. Well VMD is not the easiest program to figure out how to get it render with better shapes and resolution, so I told brad that we should try to get the model in Maya and pull off some really good high res renders. Sounds simple, especially since I figured out how to get VMD to export the model as an .obj file. But NO! VMD DID create the .obj file but DIDN'T do it incorrectly (remember guys ....VMD is an open source program and support for it is not top notch), but I figured out to make a 3d file that could be brought into Blender (last ditch efforts) and then from Blender to Maya. Well this worked. I got it into Maya, but I couldn't do auto smooth on geometry to increase the shape qualities for 2 reasons: (1) the geometry was in triangles and not quads (Maya likes quads, but all these open source programs like putting their geometry in triangles ) (2) the whole object was one big mesh with intersecting parts going everywhere. I naturally cursed myself. Well i just recreated the whole thing in maya with better geometry using the original data points. It took too long (really a full weeks worth), but I got it finished, colored, and fixed up. phewwww all that work for regular to minor improvements. Well I had a week's worth of down time to dedicate to working in Maya. The good news is that I did get more familiar with using Maya's short cut key strokes and using Mac version of Maya. Sometimes I really do miss Maya and doing 3D projects and Sometimes I don't.

Brad made some simulations that I spliced together and put on the web and you should check them out on the JILA website (link below)

• Client: David Nesbitt Group, Brad Perkins


• Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

Machine Tooling Analogy

Tom Perkins asked me to record and edit some video footage of a Electronic Machine Tooling that was shaping a machine part. He wanted to use the video as an analogy how this machine tooling will be similar to how science will be able to "tool" DNA on nano-scale. The hardest part about this video was slimming the video down from 5 minutes to 30 seconds. The robot machine was pretty cool. You just program the machine with some code and an autocad model file and the machine goes to town on the piece. I want one now, but apparently they are kinda expensive and cumbersome to store. The coolest part about the video shoot itself was how the metal shards actually shot out right towards the camera. Fortunately the metal shards didn't damage the lens or the camera.

• Client: Tom Perkins Group