2003 SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER’S LABORATORY FOR LASER ENERGETICS STUDENT RESEARCH REPORTS PROGRAM COORDINATOR Dr. R. Stephen Craxton March 2004 Laboratory Report 332 2003 SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER’S LABORATORY FOR LASER ENERGETICS STUDENT RESEARCH REPORTS PROGRAM COORDINATOR Dr. R. Stephen Craxton LABORATORY FOR LASER ENERGETICS University of Rochester 250 East River Road Rochester, NY 14623-1299 During the summer of 2003, 15 students from Rochester-area high schools participated in the Laboratory for Laser Energetics’ Summer High School Research Program. The goal of this program is to excite a group of high school students about careers in the areas of science and technology by exposing them to research in a state-of- the-art environment. Too often, students are exposed to “research” only through classroom laboratories, which have prescribed procedures and predictable results. In LLE’s summer program, the students experience many of the trials, tribulations, and 1 rewards of scientific research. By participating in research in a real environment, the students often become more excited about careers in science and technology. In addition, LLE gains from the contributions of the many highly talented students who are attracted to the program. The students spent most of their time working on their individual research projects with members of LLE’s scientific staff. The projects were related to current research activities at LLE and covered a broad range of areas of interest including laser optics modeling, laser-beam alignment, analysis of OMEGA implosion experiments, plasma physics modeling, cryogenic target physics, liquid crystal chemistry, molecular modeling, and the development and control of laser fusion diagnostics. The students, their high schools, their LLE supervisors, and their project titles are listed in the table. Their written reports are collected in this volume. The students attended weekly seminars on technical topics associated with LLE’s research. Topics this year included lasers, fusion, holographic optics, atomic force microscopy, experimental error analysis, computer-controlled optics manufacturing, and microcontrollers and their applications. The students also received safety training, learned how to give scientific presentations, and were introduced to LLE’s resources, especially the computational facilities. The program culminated on 27 August with the “High School Student Summer Research Symposium,” at which the students presented the results of their research to an audience including parents, teachers, and LLE staff. Each student spoke for approximately ten minutes and answered questions. At the symposium the William D. Ryan Inspirational Teacher award was presented to Mr. Michael Carges, a former physics 2 teacher at Pittsford-Mendon High School and currently at Greece Athena High School. This annual award honors a teacher, nominated by alumni of the LLE program, who has inspired outstanding students in the areas of science, mathematics, and technology. Mr. Carges was nominated by Joy Yuan and Siddhartha Ghosh, participants in the 2002 Summer Program. A total of 160 high school students have participated in the program since it began in 1989. The students this year were selected from approximately 60 applicants. Each applicant submitted an essay describing their interests in science and technology, a copy of their transcript, and a letter of recommendation from a science or math teacher. In the past, several participants of this program have gone on to become semifinalists and finalists in the prestigious, nationwide Intel Science Talent Search. This year, the program was particularly productive, resulting in the selection of three students (Rohan Kekre, Nadine Lippa, and Anthony Noto) as among the 300 semifinalists nationwide in this competition. LLE plans to continue this program in future years. The program is strictly for students from Rochester-area high schools who have just completed their junior year. Applications are generally mailed out in early February with an application deadline near the end of March. For more information about the program or an application form, please contact Dr. R. Stephen Craxton at LLE. This program was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC03-92SF19460. 3 High School Students and Projects (Summer 2003) Name High School Supervisor Project Title Christine Beaty Livonia High School C. Stoeckl Controlling Scientific Instruments Using JAVA on LINUX Ryan Blair Canandaigua Academy R. Boni/ Characterization of the OMEGA Sixty- M. Millechia Channel UV Spectrometer George Dahl Allendale Columbia M. Guardalben Pulse-Shaping Effects in Optical Parametric Amplifications Margot Epstein Sodus Central High School W. Bittle/ Automated Laser-Beam Steering J. Depatie Wen-fai Fong Pittsford Sutherland R. Epstein Non-LTE Effects on the Speed of Sound in Plasmas Christopher Forbes Eastridge Senior High P. Jaanimagi Energy and Angular Distributions of Secondary Electrons Under High Electric Field Nathaniel Gindele Brighton High School J. Knauer Analyzing an Array of Diamond Photodetector Detectors Rohan Kekre McQuaid Jesuit S. Craxton Tuning Multiple Triplers Using a UV Spectrometer Kathryn Knowles Churchville-Chili J. Delettrez Analysis of Silicon Emission in Rayleigh–Taylor Unstable Imploded Layered Targets Nadine Lippa Byron-Bergen A. Schmid/ Single Dye Molecule Fluorescence in S. Lukishova Liquid Crystal Hosts Anthony Noto Greece Athena K. Marshall Development of Weighted Chirality Indices: Their Use in Modeling Nickel Dithiolene Systems Benjamin Schmitt Greece Arcadia F. Marshall X-Ray Microscope Mirror Characterization Nicole Toscano Greece Arcadia V. Smalyuk Compressed Core Characterization of a Cryogenic D2 Target at Peak Neutron Production Cam Tran Wilson Magnet K. Marshall Photochemically Induced Alignment of Liquid Crystals on a Polymer Surface Michael Wozniak Greece Athena D. Harding/ The Effect of Nonuniform Illumination S. Craxton on the Shape of Deuterium Ice Layers Controlling Scientific Instruments Using JAVA on LINUX Christine Beaty Controlling Scientific Instruments Using JAVA on LINUX C. Beaty Advised by Dr. Christian Stoeckl Laboratory for Laser Energetics University of Rochester 250 East River Road Rochester, NY 14623 Abstract Motivated by the increased use of the Linux operating system at LLE, a program has been built in that environment to control the operation of CCD cameras. CCD cameras are used in several diagnostics, including UV spectrometers and streak cameras, that analyze the 60 of the OMEGA laser. This program, written in Java, allows users with little or no knowledge of the intricacies of CCD camera command logic to set up the camera and acquire data in the form of an image. Among the issues examined during programming lay the optimization of reading the image, leading to faster acquisition of the image, and the synchronization of threads in a multi-threaded program, which ensures that the camera control program will adequately respond to the user. The program was created using special care to facilitate easy reuse of the code for similar applications without requiring considerable modification. Introduction The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) at th~eUniversity of Rochester conducts inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments with the sixty-beam OMEGA laser. Several of the diagnostics used in OMEGA both to measure the laser performance and in the target experiments are dependent upon the images acquired by CCD (Charged Couple Device) cameras. Therefore, controlling CCD cameras is vital to the success of the experiments at LLE. Several versions of software for controlling CCD cameras -- --- - have been developed by scientists at LLE in the past, all designed for use in the Microsoft Windows operating system. 1 However, with an increasing interest in the Linux operating! system at LLE, it was interesting to explore if software to operate CCD cameras could be created in the Linilx, environment. Since the Java programming language has several Figure 1 CCD camera built-in features useful for software development, such as multi- threading, it was logical to write the software in that language. Uses of CCD Cameras at LLE CCD cameras are utilized in a variety of areas at LLE, including ultra-violet (UV) spectroscopy, X-ray diagnostics, and streak cameras. The images acquired by the cameras in use in the UV spectrometers capture the spectral lines of a laser beam. These spectral lines are then used to analyze the wavelength of the beam. In this manner, the different wavelengths of the sixty beams in ONIEGA can be analyzed. The CCD cameras are also crucial when coupled with a streak tube and implemented as streak cameras in the generic streak camera p1.atform. Light from a laser beam passes through the streak tube and is converted to a beam of electrons through the use of a photocathode. Any change in the intensity of the laser beam changes the intensity of the electron beam, so the electron beam is an accurate copy of the laser beam. This electron beam is then swept across a phosphor plate, causing it to glow. The changing intensities of the electron beam cause the glow to reflect the intensity variations of the laser beam. The CCD camera on the other side of this phosphor plate then photographs the glowing phosphor and, in effect, the intensity of light in the laser