Physics Today - front cover

My work is on the cover of "Physics Today" (March 2010 Vol 63, Iss 3, pp.8-80)! The featured article is " Universal insights from few-body land" which starts on pg 40 (check it out!). I worked closely with JILA Fellow Chris Greene with the data for the cover image and I used Seth Rittenhouse's POV-Ray data files. This is my first Physics Today cover.

cover caption: "The four cobralike forms here represent one view of a wavefunction for a collision between two weakly bound dimers composed of fermionic atoms. The calculations underlying the figure are at the forefront of theoretical work that explores universal properties in few-body systems—that is, features that are independent of the details of particle interactions. Chris Greene’s article, beginning on page 40, surveys universal physics in few-body systems, from a startling prediction offered in 1970 to recent theoretical and experimental advances."

Chris Greene came to me in October to talk to me about helping him make the cover image for submission to Physics Today. We discussed several ideas and processes, but there were some factors that I had work around. The main one was that I was already working several other projects for some other Fellows, the deadline for PT submission was soon, and Chris's project involved a lot of 3D work (which are never quick projects to do). Even though these factors were daunting at the beginning of the project, I was super excited about it. I never work with his 3D data before and I thought Chris's and Seth's original models were interesting representations of their research. The idea was just weird enough that I had to do it. It has Cobras!!? naturally im into it and I couldn't pass up this opportunity. (shout out to my GDC crew!!!)

The project started with Chris giving me the POV-Ray files and showing me what he was doing with them. You can check out the older renderings of the cobras here. The POV-Ray model data files were Seth Rittenhouse's. Seth was graduate student at JILA, but I didn't realize he finished his thesis and was now at Cambridge, MA when I emailed him about doing some data re-renderings. He mentioned that files I was working with took 1.5 weeks to process (pure continuous processing on a pretty fast computer cluster at JILA (i think)). So doing some re-processing of the given models wasn't going to work with the time frame that I was working in.

Production Notes:
I work with a lot different 3D environments and softwares, but I typically avoided using POV-Ray. POV-Ray (Persistence of Vision Raytracer) is a great open source command line driven render, but I would rather work in more robust 3D package like Maya that have some great standard renders and mentalRay (i typically like to render with MentalRay if i can). Don't get me wrong, you can definitely render some beautiful things with POV-Ray, but it takes a veteran 3D coder (the recent versions of POV-Ray have been really impressive since the last time I checked out POV-Ray in 2004.) Also POV-Ray is primarily a render and lacks other functions that a lot of other 3D software come standard with (part of the beauty and downfalls of POV-Ray). The work flow of POV-Ray immediate brought back memories of me coding/modeling with OpenGL environment back in 2004. At the beginning I was working with POV-Ray's script files and I was getting some good results (I was running it on both the PC and Mac environments), but the work flow was really tedious and not efficient use of time to master POV-Ray's rendering commands and work flow process. I needed a better work flow that could use POV-Ray files and that could make some great renderings with a lot of easy to change controls. So I decided I need to incorporate Maya in this work flow which meant I needed to export/convert the model data. So I spent a lot of time reading forums about other people trying this and it appears that its not the easiest thing to do (or that common with the Maya and POV-ray communities). There weren't a lot of scripts or programs that would do this well (and cheap as in free). I was checking this software called Moray (which is kinda of GUI interface for POV-Ray), but it didn't really have what I needed. Then I found this program called 3DWin. At first 3DWin didn't look that promising or if it did do it, it was going to make the model come out looking like garbage. But I was surprised and super excited that it converted the model data pretty well (i still had do some operations to it). Now I was able to work in Maya's 3D environment. Unfortunately it took a while to convert the files and a lot of the rendering techniques and processes I was planning on working on for this project was going to take too long. So the final rendering that PT selected is hybrid of mutliple renderings using POV-Ray and Maya. I am glad I was able to work pretty closely with POV-Ray and actually incorporate it my work flow process of making a pretty good rendering.

I want to thank for Seth and Chris for the original files and for letting me work on this project. The project deadlines originally took place in October, and after a few months of not hearing back from PT, I was little worried we wouldn't get our submission selected for the cover. Physics Today has a pretty wide circulation and some pretty amazing past cover imagery. Physics Today's covers are pretty competitive to get and I am really happy that Chris and Seth's research was selected as the cover feature.

Clients: Chris Greene and Seth Rittenhouse

Related Links: Physics Today - March 2010, JILA Research Highlight article

Carl Lineberger's cover - Journal of Physical Chemistry A

Lineberger Research Laboratories in JILA Basement, 2001. Watercolor by visiting fellow Zdeněk Herman.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry A did a special cover and preface issue where they did a tribute W. Carl Lineberger (January 28, 2010,Vol 114, Iss , Pg 1225-1602). Check it out!

Carl asked me about scanning JILA visiting Fellow Zdeněk Herman's watercolor painting, and preparing it for print for JPC-A. He told me about the idea of using Herman's watercolor painting, and I thought it was a fantastic idea for cover layout. Scanning it was bit difficult due to the size of the piece but I was pretty careful when I was dismantling the frame and handling the art. I made sure the colors were mastered correctly and maintain high fidelity scans.

If you ever been to JILA before, you may have noticed visiting Fellow Zdeněk Herman's art work hanging in the JILA tower and in various Fellow's offices. It was one of the first things I notice when I first went to the top floor of the JILA tower. I expressed my admiration for the Herman's illustrations and Carl loaned me his personal reprint of Zdeněk Herman's sketch book that I could check out. It was pretty funny seeing the history of JILA through Herman's sketch book. When I get extra time, I am hoping to scan it to make digital version of Herman's sketch book and make it avaliable to the staff and faculty at JILA (and maybe for JILA's website).

People: Carl Lineberger

Related Links: The Journal of Physical Chemistry A : Tribute to W. Carl Lineberger

Ana Maria Rey & Jun Ye - NIST Annual Report

This was a photo shoot with Ana Maria Rey and Jun Ye for the NIST Annual Report (2008-2009) which is slated to be published and available in mid 2010.

Client: Jun Ye Group and Ana Maria Rey

Related Links: NIST Annual Report (2008-2009) [pdf]

Measuring red blood cells elasticity

This was a project where I was 3D modeling (using Maya) a microfluidics device that was being used to measure the elasticity of red blood cells. This was for JILA Fellow Ralph Jimenez's group. I did version of this a few years ago (see posting titled "Mircofluidics Device"), so it was interesting to follow the updates/changes to this particular experimental apparatus and the applications it is being used for.

Client: Ralph Jimenez

Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

PNAS: Phase-matched (coherent) addition of the high harmonic X-ray fields

I worked with Fellow Margaret Murnane and Dr. Tenio Popmintchev from the Kepteyn-Murnane Group on this figure for PNAS. The paper was titled "Phase matching of high harmonic generation in the soft and hard X-ray regions of the spectrum". It was published June 2009, but I just recently found the article was finally published.

Caption: "Fig. 1. Extreme nonlinear upconversion of a femtosecond laser light to
shorter wavelengths. Phase-matched (coherent) addition of the high harmonic
X-ray fields emitted by many atoms in the medium is shown."

• Clients: Kapteyn-Murnane Group


• Related Links: PNAS article (30 June 2009, Vol 106, No. 26, pp10516-10521)

Facing Heisenberg at the nanoscale

Nature Nanotechnology version

I worked closely with John Teufel (who now works at NIST) and with JILA Fellow Konrad Lehnert on making this graphic for the JILA Research highlight and for the JILA AMO site, JILA main site, and for JILA Light & Matter Winter 2010 issue. Then project expanded to have the visual for Nature Nanotechnology, and the article is called "Measurement: Facing Heisenburg at the nanoscale" (citation: Nature Nanotechnology 4, 796 - 798 (2009)doi:10.1038/nnano.2009.368). The top image is the Nature Nanotechnology version which was modified to meet the design/style guide for their journal. The second image is the original design that was mainly made for the spread layout of upcoming JILA Light & Matter issue (it looks pretty good in the layout) Check it out Nature Nanotechology article if you want find out more about visual and research. the links are below.

John Teufel use to be in Konrad Lehnert's group at JILA, but he recently graduated and started working at NIST. I worked with him before, so it was nice to have another project working and talking to him about his latest work with Konrad. It started out with emails and phone chats discussing the concepts and visual challenges of "how to explain" the research (Konrad's group always have a good visual challenges for me). John dropped by my JILA office a few times for a few discussions (its nice that NIST is only few blocks down the road from JILA). John made some schematic like figures how the device worked and had some SEM images of the device which was great start. I proposed isometric perspective style illustration which would help the visual with the scale and space a little easier. The device was dense with detail and John and I wanted to emphasis the nanowire area, but not loose sense of the whole device's architecture. I did all the line work in Illustrator using the SSR Method and then used Photoshop for the final touches and layout. Eventually I would like make a flash animation of the device to help explain the vibrations of the nanowire and zoom in and out of the areas of the device to explain how it works.

Client: Konrad Lehnert and John Teufel

Related Links: Nature Nanotechnology (News and Views) article, JILA Research Highlight article

Angewandte Chemie - front cover

My art work is on the cover of "Angewandte Chemie" (2009 International Edition: published online Oct 6, DOI: 10.1002/anie.200905074). I worked closely with Carl Lineberger (at JILA) and Takatoshi Ichino (at University of Texas) in designing the cover image. It is my first cover for this international journal.

Cover and article description:
"Photodetachment of the oxyallyl radical anion leads to formation of the oxyallyl diradical, an elusive transient molecule involved in many organic reactions. As described by W. C. Lineberger et al. in their Communication (DOI: 10.1002/anie.200904417), the photoelectron spectrum reveals that the oxyallyl ground state is singlet and the lowest triplet state is only 55 meV higher in energy. The spectral profile indicates that the planar singlet state is the transition state for ring opening of cyclopropanone, while the C-C-C bending motion is activated upon photodetachment to the triplet state."

I want to especially thank Carl Lineberger and Takatoshi Ichino for entrusting me to work on this project and for working collaboratively with me. This project would not have been as successful nor would it have been completed if the project had not been approached with a team work mentality (working collaboratively is my favorite work style!). I also want to make a special mention about Takatoshi's contribution with helping with GNUplot surface plots and being available during that Saturday and Sunday to trouble shoot the graphics outputs from GNUplot with me.

Read the paper on the Angewandte Chemie journal website! Links below (check back for updated links and sourcing). For everybody else, yes it is rather complicated to explain, but JILA will be doing a research highlight this winter and I recommend reading that to get a general audience version of the research details and visuals (again check back for updated links).

THE SHORT SIDE STORY behind this project:

It was a pretty fun and intense project with a quick turn around of 3-4 days. I was working on several projects at once for several different Fellow groups at JILA. Also I was trying to make major advances on the JILA website overhaul to a CMS design and platform. I was pretty stressed about how I was going to manage all these projects at once and they ALL had really tight deadlines. So I arranged my project queue based on deadline and prioritized importance. Carl's cover project had the most immediate deadline, so I hyperfocused on his project. My project planning and time management skills made it possible to finish this project and stay on top of my other project productions (future posts coming soon!)

Usually when I start a project like this, I work in extreme close communication with the Fellow(s) and all researchers involved all the way through the project until it is finally submitted. The only problem was that Carl was going to be in Europe during the project and Takatoshi was in Austin, Texas. This particular communication setup initially opened up some logistic barriers, but I carefully figured out my game plan, and how we were all going to stay connected and work through this. How you might ask? extensive active Email threads (I think all of us were constantly checking our email accounts every 10 seconds) and cell phone calls (just got my iphone all app'ed up and ready to go). I figured out everybody's time zones and when the best times were to shoot off communications. Fortunately Takatoshi's time zone wasn't as drastic as Carl's. All n All, everything worked out just fine.

Carl was around for a day before heading off to Europe, so I quickly started going over the materials with Carl. We talked directly about how to make a cover design about his rather complex research. The title for the paper is "The Lowest Singlet and Triplet States of the Oxyallyl Diradical" which is not the easiest thing to explain visually. I spent a lot of time reading the research and pouring over the powerpoint slides and visuals. At this point Carl and I were emailing and calling Takatoshi about our discussions. The design changed quite a few times, but we all reached a rough consensus about what should and shouldn't be in the cover.

The game plan was roughly simpified as:

• Model the (3D) molecules from data with GaussView in high resolution
  
• Model the energy surface plots from various math equations with GNUplot (which is Linux based software)
• Take the model pieces and combine them in layout, done in Illustrator
• Finalize the design and master the file for print publication

While this seems simple enough, the process was more complex with the work flow process and communications. I never used GaussView before, so I had to install the software on my machines, quickly read the manual, and crash through some quick tests to make sure I was going to be able to use the software for my workflow. Using GaussView worked out perfectly. So far so good.

Then I had to do the same thing for the GNUplot application which I got running on my Windows and Linux. Jim from the JILA computing group helped me figure out how to get GNUplot running on the Linux box and my PC box (Thanks Jim!). Next Takatoshi wrote some GNUplot commands and equations which I was also playing with (again after crashing around GNUplot manuals). Takatoshi and I were in constant communication, swapping GNUplot commands back and forth between each other. Then BAM; GNUplot started being a difficult baby with me. Everything was going well until we all realized that GNUplot was rendering the surface plots kinda oddly at certain perspectives. While it was rendering mathmatically correct plots, they looked extremely odd from the particular perspective angles that we wanted. While it was rendering certain basic perspectives correctly, it could not handle 3D perspectives where any region of surface and contour potentially overlapped. Essentially, it was rendering the plots with contours and surfaces that had both hidden and viewable surface regions; that was causing some 3D optical allusions. While it was still mathematically correct, it was extremely hard to tell which parts of the surfaces were supposed to be in front, underneath, top, and in the back. GNUplot didn't have a ray-trace function to help it distinguish what was supposed to be viewable and what was supposed to be hidden (more-or-less Takatoshi and I couldn't find a corrective function nor did we have time to try to figure how to code one in about a day). This essentially made rendering images at high resolution RASTER worthless to us. So Takatoshi and I investigated the 3D and Vector formats. Takatoshi was able to pump out some pretty hot pdf vector versions. I was trying to do the same thing, but my PDF plugin library for GNUplot wasn't working! At this point I was about to pull out my hair because if I couldn't get the pdf version to work properly, then the whole project was in jeopardy. It was quickly becoming a "DO or Die" situation with GNUplot for the whole project. The pdf versions were extremely important in order to get visuals in a scientifically correct format (color mappings, vector contours, etc) that I could correct for the optical discrepancies with my other graphic software. Fortunately Takatoshi was able to render the pdf(s) from GNUplot correctly....So Takatoshi and I were working all day Saturday (until late in our nights) trading GNUplot code and pdf exports. Once Takatoshi and I were done with GNUplot exports, next came me spending quite a bit of time running corrections on the GNUplots exports. Even though it took a long time to fix the plots, the results were well worth it and the data still remains correct and true. Once the GNUplots were fixed, I knew the cover layout was going to be awesome and exactly the way I was originally planning it to turn out. I like it when I get my way.

After that it was just getting everything together and having a remote round table discussion by email and phone with Carl, Takatoshi and I. Those weren't held at normal business hours due to extreme locations we were all physically at. We all got excited about final results and after a few minor details were adjusted, we were ready for submission (which was hours away). done.

Full citation: Takatoshi Ichino, Stephanie M. Villano, Adam J. Gianola, Daniel J. Goebbert, Luis Velarde, Andrei Sanov, Stephen J. Blanksby, Xin Zhou, David A. Hrovat, Weston T. Borden, and W. Carl Lineberger, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. English 48, 8381 (2009).

Clients: Carl Lineberger and Takatoshi Ichino

Related Links: Angewandte Chemie International Edition, JILA Research Highlight article

Ti:S crystal in an optical frequency comb laser

I was asked to come do a photo shoot in Steve Cundiff's lab. Julie has been updating the content on the main JILA website for Precision Optical Frequency Metrology section, and she thought it would be a good idea to get some photos of Ti:S crystal and optical frequency comb laser setup for the website and other potential future uses. John Willits, who is a graduate student in Cundiff's lab, showed me around the lab and helped me with the photo shoot (basically made sure I didn't break anything or touch the lasers). I originally thought I was going to have to do some laser trace photography, but that method was shot down very quickly after a fair warning from John that some parts of the laser arrangement were actually potentially dangerous. The laser setup was really bright bright GREEN, and I was a little worried about how DLSR would handle with this type of light. You could actually see the laser path for the most part, so I wanted to have long exposures in hopes of getting those laser paths to be visible. There wasn't really a lot of room and I was basically balancing ontop of a ladder with a tripod trying to get a steady shot in a dark room. I was getting frustrated with not being able to move around the setup easily, but in the end I got some pretty awesome shots that I am content with. The photos will be on main JILA website (link below) and will probably be used for various presentations and other things. I just wish it could be used for a journal or magazine cover because I think the colors are really vivid and it would make a pretty good print cover.

Client: Steve Cundiff

Related Links: JILA main website; "Precision Optical Frequency Metrology"

Ralph Jimenez Photo Shoot (MOABC website)

Photo shoot Ralph Jimenez in his lab at JILA. Microintegrated Optics for Advance Bioimaging and Control (aka MOABC) needed a lab shot with Ralph for their website. The photo shoot was scheduled pretty quickly. I did not even have the time to bring my lighting kit, so I just worked with the lighting in lab which. We just turned on some lasers (bright green) and I played with the rest of the lights in the lab.

Client: Ralph Jimenez

Related Links: Microintegrated Optics for Advanced Bioimaging and Control (MOABC) website

Subsurface Circulations within Sun's Active Regions

I worked closely with Brad Hindman from the Juri Toomre Group; he came to me about doing some figures for a paper he was publishing titled "Subsurface Circulations within Active Regions" for The Astrophysical Journal. Brad does a lot with Laboratory for Computational Dynamics (LCD) which supports fundamental research on helioseismology and convection and dynamo theory. The scientists at LCD study the dynamics inside stars with helioseismology and design large-scale computer simulations of convection, turbulence, and dynamo processes within stars. They work on a pretty intense TeraGrid network which is basically clusters of supercomputers tied together across the nation. Its pretty neat stuff!

I just realized that this is my first published astrophysics project. I'm breaking into the astrophysics scene!

The full citation for the paper is:
Subsurface Circulations within Active Regions
Bradley W. Hindman, Deborah A. Haber, and Juri Toomre 2009 ApJ 698 1749-1760 doi: 10.1088/0004-637X/698/2/1749

Clients: Juri Toomre Group and Brad Hindman

Related Links: The Astrophysical Journal

Monodromy

I worked with Fellow Heather Lewandowski on making this graphic for the JILA Research highlight and for the JILA AMO site. Heather's group did a series of experiments with the classical system of a pendulum on a spring which has monodromy. Monodromy is a term that has been applied in mathematics to systems that run around a singularity; however, there havn't been too many lab experiments involving monodromy. Heather's group decided to do several experiments in order to see if the systems tested had monodromy. I never heard of monodromy, but it was interesting learning how they were essentially doing these classical experiments which would help give them more insight into how other systems might also display these behaviors. The classical monodromy confirmed in the pendulum-on-a-spring experiment is analogous to the bending and stretching behavior of a CO₂ molecule.

I used Maya for this project because it was the easiest and quickest way to depict this classical experimental setup of monodromy (pretty easy to model the springs in Maya and I didn't want to draw it in Illustrator/Photoshop). In a three-dimensional spherical pendulum, for example, the singularity would correspond to the "straight up" position. However, pure bouncing motions around this position tend to be unstable. Because this instability is straight upward against gravity, any small deviation from purely vertical results in motion that could loop around the singularity. It is pretty interesting stuff and I recommend that you read the JILA Highlight article and article published in Physical Review Letters by Heather's Group to find more about the experiment and monodromy. Eventually I would like to take my Maya 3d file and really animate it. The motion is interesting in the context of monodromy. I hate "never having enough time" for the animating parts of these projects. There is always an endless list of new projects getting in the way (i need another me!).

They apparently used my JILA camera (Panasonic DVX100A) to record video data that they gathered from the experiments. I remember the camera being loaned out for several months (almost a year) which was fine because I wasn't using the camera for any immediate projects myself. I thought it was pretty cool that they were able to use the features/controls of that camera for their experiment. The DVX100A is a notorious camera (known for its low cost and pretty high quality) used widely in the indie film industry and various other productions. Now the JILA DVX100A has another checked "has been used for" use: a classical physics experiment camera.

Clients: Heather Lewandowski Group

Related Links: JILA Research Highlight article

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