Well, it happens occasionally: someone else beats you to the punchline. We've been working on titanium-dioxide surfaces and their properties for a little while now. We're almost at the point of submitting our results but just got a large blow to our egos today. On friday a very similar paper was published by a different group of x-ray scattering experimenters.

It happens. They're studying the same system under very similar conditions and finished up before we did. It was quite surprising actually. I had no idea they were doing similar work as well.

There is still potentially a positive for us. While our starting systems are the same, what they do (studying the sites where ad-atoms bind in wet TiO2) is different from the direction we've been heading. What it means is that if we're really successful and things work as we intend, then we'll still have a new result(forgive me being a bit vague at this moment). We've got a reasonably good indication that the TiO2 surface will behave as we want from previous experiments. But to really be definitive and clear, we need one more set of data. And hence that's what we've been planning for our beam-run later in the week.

If things don't work out as we hope.... well, we can still write up what we've got. It won't be very exciting to say, "our results are the same as..." but at least we can add confirmation of another experimental result. We've worked on this for quite a while independently of the other group and it would be a shame to not write up anything at all about it.

But that's part of the endeavor and it's part of what keeps me up some times. My own main projects are still relatively safe and progressing. We've got a paper almost ready for publication and I will be publicly presenting the results (for the first time) at a conference later in the month. Plus we've already got the set of experiments that build on this work in progress and underway.

Still.... it can put your stomach in knots, especially as a young (ie not established) researcher. The last thing you want is for someone else to figure out your baby before you do.

In other news....

I'm still happily working away on my nano-faceting project. I've got the AFM(atomic force microscope) going down the hall. With two mostly identical samples I'm able to have one being prepared while the other is being imaged. It just requires lots of walking between rooms! For the first time, I think I'm getting a good handle on the faceting and its trigger. I'm annealing for the last time today and, if it works as I hope, then the trend will be established. Once I've got a good "hook," then it's possible to really move forward. The first step was establishing a stable (and reproducible) starting point. Now that's done and I'm in the process of trying to get my surface to facet "spontaneously."

I suppose tonight's faceting experiments will be a good stopping point and my last for a week or two. Things are a bit tense as we try to finish the last of the preparations before beam-time on Thursday. We're constantly uncovering things that need doing and doubtlessly we will be working hard in the coming days. I've already begun the process of shifting my sleep schedule over to nights (which is where I'll be during the experiments later in the week).

In the meantime I'm also continuing to run magnetic domain simulations on my workstation. I'll try to post some pictures of the domains and (hopefully) facets soon.