Dear parents,

We competed an experiment that encompassed all of the types of quantum excitations (electronic, vibrational and rotational), by using UV light to 3D print. The experiment took a long amount of time, so while one student worked with the UV laser, the others worked on a problem where they had to derive the particle in a 3-dimensional box for a silver nanocube, and figure out the best use for these nanocubes. This problem really pushed the students to recall many of the topics we have previously discussed, as well as further their mathematical abilities. I was extremely impressed with ALL of the students today, as they clearly showed a deep knowledge of what we have learned so far, with great abilities to extend these to a practical problem. We will talk about rotational motion in more depth next lesson.

The following 2 images are from the problem I gave them. The first is a transmission electron microscope (TEM) image of silver nanocubes, and the second displays the energy landscapes of the surface excitations for these nanocubes.