 It's one o'clock on a Monday afternoon, so you must be watching Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Marg, and every week at this time we bring you some science results from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, specializing primarily in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, which today is really appropriate because I have not one, but three guests with me today. So let me introduce you to my immediate left. There is Chemic Dira, who is a researcher within HIGP, Hannah Shelton, who is a graduate student, and Greg Finkelstein, who is a lab manager, and we're all at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, and we're going to be talking about mineral physics. And Chemic, I know you've been on the show before, you had a different host at that time, but just explain for the viewers, what do we mean by mineral physics? Hello, Happy, and thank you for the invitation. We are very happy to be here, and we thought we would come with a strong group to represent all of the important components of what we do. I was wondering if we could see the first graphics. Let's look at the first slide. So mineral physics, the discipline that we specialize in, is a science about simplifying complex phenomena that are hard to understand and hard to measure. We look at very complicated systems such as whole planets. We look at important processes that affect these planets, you know, earthquakes, volcano, eruptions, and so on. And we simplify it stage by stage. We look at geological formations of individual rocks, we look at what minerals form these formations, and then we focus on the molecular and atomic level. And for those who are just listening on the podcast, we're looking at a slide where we've got planet Earth on the left-hand side, some geology at the kilometer or mile scale, minerals at a few microns, which is less than a centimeter in size, and then molecules at an Armstrong size, right? So you study all of these scales with mineral physics? We focus on the right side of these graphics where you deal with atoms and bonds and basically chemistry. So we take apart something as complex as the Earth and try to explain by means of, you know, chemical and physical processes what is happening inside. And we've had Bin Chen, who's your collaborator at the University on the show in the last few months. So you and Bin actually worked together on different projects. Obviously it's the same science that you're doing, correct? Yes, that's true. I mean, Earth is so complex that there are many environments and many depths, many types of rocks that you can study. What is kind of a little bit more of a focus for me compared to my colleague Bin is I'm more of a material scientist. I'm a chemist by training. So for me, looking at Earth science relevant phenomena that connect in some way with materials that are relevant for technological applications that you find in your household, that's something that we try to focus on. And we learn lessons from how these earth materials operate to try to improve what we have in our cell phones. It was telling us a lot about the interior of the Earth and maybe some of the other solid planets like the Moon or Venus and that So let's bring you and Greg. It must be some pretty sophisticated kinds of equipment that you work on. If you brought along an illustration or two. We may have one if we could show them on the screen, please. Yes. It just looks like a classroom. But on the TV screen, you're obviously looking at something trying to infer what Oh, yeah. So on the on the screen, we have a crystal structure and this is this is our conference area. We use this to to have conversations about the science that we're doing and to visualize crystal structures that we look at in the lab. So if you move on to the next, if you move on to the next slide, now we have instruments and these facilities are at the University of Manoa. These are at the University of Manoa. They're in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics in that building in our department. And we have two different instruments. See, there's a bigger one on the left and a smaller one on the right. And the inset on the right side of the screen is actually a zoomed in picture of the instrument on the left. So what what are these two pieces of kits? So these instruments are both called x-ray defectometers, but they're a little bit different. So in our lab, the main technique that we use is we take x-rays and we shoot them at the rocks and crystals that we look at and the x-rays interact with the electrons and the atoms in the crystal structures. And they can tell us about the what these the structure of these crystals and sometimes about their physical properties as well, which is what we're interested in learning about. So So these are glorified or more refined versions of an x-ray machine. They are literally x-ray machines. When you go to the doctors or the dentist. Yes, but they're a little they are they're more refined versions of that. So in particular, they focus down to much smaller sizes. So oftentimes, you know, we saw a picture in one of the previous slides with like 10 micron scale bar. Oftentimes are the crystals that we look at are on that scale or on you know, the the 10 to 50 micron scale where way, way smaller than an inch in width. Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with my one might. Yeah, one micron is one millionth of a meter. So so it's very, very, very, we're talking about on the order of like the width of your hair, right on your head. So Hannah, you're a graduate student. Does Chemek actually let you loose on this kind of equipment? Oh, absolutely. What you're doing for your thesis? Yes. Yeah. So I am extremely lucky in that I get to use these beautiful, brand new instruments, as well as stuff that we can do in Chicago at Argonne National Laboratory for my research. And I use the technique Greg just talked about the x-ray diffraction instruments to look at the structure of the minerals that are of interest. And this is part of your PhD thesis? This is part of my PhD thesis. Yeah. So I look at minerals at extreme conditions. So think high pressure, high temperature conditions that you can't normally see on the Earth's surface. So on the interior of the Earth, or in a meteorite impact, things like that. Okay. Now, Chemek, Hannah mentioned Chicago. Does this mean that Hawaii is collaborating with Chicago? I know there's vet, there's organizations throughout the country. Can you just explain a little bit more of the context? Is this a unique facility in Hawaii or part of a bigger group? Yeah, so we are fortunate in many different aspects of our operation. And I think this is in large part thanks to the support of diversity in Hawaii. So I think diversity can be understood on many different levels. In our case, it's a diversity of different models of how your research program is based on different instruments and how it involves different kinds of scientific stuff. So we are fortunate because a lot of research, cutting edge research, research is really difficult to do in terms of technical barriers requires that your X-ray beam, the beam that these instruments produce is really, really tiny. So the scale of human hair is useful for a comparison. If you want to simulate conditions that are present at planetary centers, you have to work with samples that are perhaps a tenth of the size of a human hair. So very, very tiny. With instruments like the ones in the lab that we have here, they are state-of-the-arts on their own. They are kind of cutting edge and allow us to develop new customizations that enhance the functionality. But they are not sufficiently sensitive and they don't have sufficiently small beam for the most challenging experiments. So for these experiments, we have to travel to facilities, national facilities that are funded by the Department of Energy. One of them, the one where we usually travel is located in Chicago. It's called Argon National Lab. So the way in which we are fortunate is that we actually manage one of the instruments at this facility. So my students get to participate in both the development of the instrument in support of experiments done by people from other institutions, as well as be able to do their own research. Fascinating. So what kind of skill sets do you three have? I mean, Hannah, are you going to get a geology degree? Are you a physicist? Are you a chemist? So my PhD, once I'm all done, will be in geology and geophysics because I primarily study the material science of minerals. But my background just like chemics is in chemistry. I'm a chemist by training. And some of my research actually looks at chemistry that would be applicable to material science contexts at extreme conditions. But Greg, as my background is a little bit different, he must be an engineer. No, my background is geology, actually. And I came in and I moved into material science and you control these wonderful pieces of equipment? Yes, well, I have spent the last decade or so learning learning these techniques and the science behind them and learning how to use these instruments. So in grad school, my degree is actually in geosciences and material science. It's a joint degree. And so I started with geology and then eventually got more interested in crystallography and material science. And now I am, you know, running this lab and these instruments. But there must be a lot of engineering or computer program. Well, there is some, but you know, we also, these instruments are really complex. So, you know, while I run them a lot on myself, we also work with people, you know, the people who build these instruments to make sure that they're kept in, you know, tip top shape. So they... This is quite a big group now. Times requires a lot of collaboration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's not just the X-ray instruments we talked about. There's another slide of another piece of equipment. Maybe we can go into the next slide. Oh, yeah. And here's another student of yours. Yeah, this is the facility in Chicago that we manage. And it's actually also an X-ray instrument, but a little bit more flexible and versatile. It costs about ten times as much as the one that we have. But yeah, this is something that allows us to do experiments that only a handful of people in the country can perform. And they give you access to these regimes of conditions that are really unique. And sometimes unique something, you need something like this to make a new material that will be harder than diamond or a better superconductor or something that is really powerful. Those of you who have always watched this show will know one of my key questions is, why should anybody care about what you're doing? I mean, this must be really expensive. It's super sophisticated work. Would any of you like to take a stab and say, why should the person in Hawaii worry about high-tresher mental physics? I can give you my old person's perspective on this, and maybe you can ask a young student. Hannah, you're going to start a career. So let your advisor go first. Yeah, so if you're... I really like reading books about technological development of societies. If you look at the history of the society in the United States, how the technology entered our lives at the level that we experienced today, how cell phones became something indispensable, how telecommunication over large distances became so easy. This is built to a large extent by incremental improvements in materials that we deal with. You have to understand the basic phenomena that make cell phones work and that allow you to build small microprocessor chips in your phones and computers and so on. So what we contribute to this whole society, to this whole world, is understanding of these basic phenomena and sometimes recipes for making materials that work much better. Okay, so we've had in the past people like, hope is she on the show, her talking about how you actually develop the materials which will then be employed in various useful items. Would you agree, Hannah, is this why you're starting your career in mineral physics? Oh, totally. Just branching off of what Chemic said, to me, the mineral physics is... It's one of the ways you can express material science of the earth, right? When we look at the properties of an individual mineral under extreme stresses, we're looking at its materials properties and what people don't really know is that a lot of these material properties can be extrapolated to technology. So for instance, a type of mineral structure that was found in earth rocks can be used in solar panels. And in addition to that, there are a lot of materials that are found underneath our feet that are used in cell phones, computers, you name it. So there's really this branching point that people don't think of when they think of geology. So the intrinsic value of doing basic research then gets implemented as you're actually manufacturing processes, that sort of thing. Well, we're getting close to the middle of break. So when we come back, I've been really interested to understand a bit more about what the broader applications are in mineral physics. So let me just remind the viewers, you are watching Think Tech Hawaii research in Manara. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and we'll be back in about a minute. See you then. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manara. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and today I've got three guests, and we're all talking about mineral physics. Camerite, we have Chemic Deer, who is a researcher. Hannah Shelton, who is a graduate student. And Greg Finkelstein, who is a lab tech, and they are all in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. And we were just getting into some of the broader applications of mineral physics before the break. So, Chemic, can you sort of give us a broader view of where this discipline is at the university? Yes, so I think at places like University of Hawaii, the strategy to be successful and be competitive on a national scale is a little bit different than large and rich universities. So in places like Hawaii, it pays off to identify areas of emphasis or areas of excellence where you can kind of condense talent and condense instrumentation, bring it together, connect it, and then have a larger impact. So I think our university is quite good at strategizing, at looking for areas of strategic investments and strategic initiative. If we could show for a moment the next slide. We've had a discussion at the university about which directions are worth special care in the next few years. And so this diagram here, innovative materials and technologies for an adaptive future, and we've got a circular chart. Can you just walk us round the chart, please? Yes, so in this project that started with a call issued by the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research for identifying the most promising areas of research investment, we got a fairly broad group of people together, people including engineers, scientists involved in earth science research like myself and my group members, as well as people involved in chemistry and physics research. And we thought of what we could put together, how we could contribute our talents, our instrumentation, our resources to form something that has a good connection with societal issues, with environmental issues, with things that are relevant for the state, for the country. So we thought about this project which emphasizes material science in developments of innovative materials that could solve future needs of our society. So on this diagram down at the bottom, the orange focused research activity, you're then talking about the arrow going to the green dot border impact of research knowledge in society, is that right? So you have to start with some goals. So you set the goals of some specific process or some specific setting where you want to contribute your research. You build the educational program around it. So you custom tailor your classes to what the students when they graduate will need to find employment in places. And this isn't an idea, you actually got funding from the university to develop this concept, correct? This is kind of a project in progress. So we have some startup funding from the university that allowed us to define the group of collaborators, faculty members who want to work on this together. We are in the process of applying for funding for federal services. Hannah, this must be really exciting to be a graduate student in a group where you're not just talking to geologists, but you might actually get engaged with people across campus, whether it's an engineer or a chemist or whoever. What's it like being a graduate student in this activity? Oh gosh, as we pointed out before, we have access to these really state-of-the-art instrumentation abilities that allow us to do our own research. But in addition to that, like you just mentioned, I get to talk to people from civil and mechanical engineering, from chemistry, from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, all sorts of different collaborative projects, which not only are tied into my research, but can go forward in trying to do projects like sustainability or construction-related things in Hawaii. So there's both a national and a local focus. But that must make Greg's job even more challenging because you're talking to all of these people. I am a geologist, and if I came to use one of these X-ray instruments, I wouldn't know where to start. That's where I come in. So how do we view training the university community to utilize these state-of-the-art pieces of equipment? I mean, is that one of the challenges you're facing? Yeah, so in the last couple of months, I've worked with people from oceanography, from geophysics, from geology, from civil engineering, from the energy institute. And they all presumably have different research goals. They have different research goals. We've worked on batteries, on thin films, on sediments from deep ocean drilling bores. And people come in with varying levels of expertise. Sometimes we come in with experts, and sometimes we come in with undergraduates who just need to learn the basics of what is it, how do X-rays interact with rocks? And so, I mean, it's exciting for me because I get to talk different subject matter with different people, and I'm exposed to different exciting scientific opportunities, but it's important to, I try and take it on an individual level and meet people where they are in terms of their expertise. So it helps connect the community by having these sort of central facilities that... Sure, and Hannah, you're close to defending your thesis, right? This must open up a number of career goals. I understand that you went to high school and college in Hawaii. I did, yes. So you're a homegrown scientist. I am. Where do you see the opportunities that UH has provided taking your career because there's many different options, correct? There's a bunch of different options. So not only could I go forth in a kind of traditional geology and geophysics track, but there's opportunities to work in very, very well-funded and large government organizations like the Department of Energy, the Army, as well as other industry-related fields that you wouldn't normally associate with the Department of Geology and Geophysics. And a few of us would be interested to hear you've got an award from the Geology Department and you won a prize at some... Yeah, so... Can you tell us a bit about this? Because this is really exceptional. A Hawaii high school student has now matured, getting PhD and you're really doing well in the national community. So for one of the projects that I'm working on, I was fortunate enough to earn the Fred Bullard Award through the Department of Geology and Geophysics. And for the same project, I was able to present at a conference run by the Department of Energy called the SSAP Symposia. And this project revolved around looking at some very unusual structures of SiO2 silica. Okay, sand. Sand, yeah, essentially. So everybody associates silica with sand or glass. But what people don't really realize a lot of times is that that same molecule also makes quartz. It also makes a bunch of different mineral types that have different material properties and different potentially relevant technological applications. So I was looking at a very unusual and very little understood form of this silica that hasn't been understood for 20 years or so. People have been arguing about the structure. And this was something DOE was particularly interested in or saw the potential of these? Yeah, so the Department of Energy is particularly interested in technologically relevant things. But it's also interested in what they call extreme conditions, material science. So the Department of Energy looks at a lot of high energy interactions, think nuclear fusions, things like that. So anything that looks at material properties of things at these extreme conditions is of interest to them. Well, it sounds a fascinating career. But, Chemi, where do we go next? I mean, are we covering all the bases? You've just set up this collaboration across campus. Where do you see mineral physics going in the next five years or so? Could we see the last graphics? Yeah, so I'm very excited about this interaction and the collaborative opportunity on campus. We are trying to emphasize this multidisciplinary. And let's explain what it is we're seeing here, and some colored football. Yeah, so on the left side we have a graph that shows what we are trying to combine in one pot to brew something that is really impactful on a societal or global scale. So we put together our basic material science research, where we play with materials and try to change them and tune them. We combine this with computer simulations, materials informatics, which utilizes supercomputers and allows us to do things that you cannot physically do in experiments easily. And we try to connect this with the engineering side where you would actually take this knowledge and make it into a device that you can put in a factory. So the left-hand diagram would basically cover three different parts of the university, college, engineering, green, whether it's chemistry department or physics in orange and the middle, and then the informatics is the computer sciences. That's right. So this is what the Vice Chancellor for Research encourages you to work on. It seems so, yes. We also emphasize this pedagogical model of a T-shaped curriculum. So it emphasizes that you have to maintain a balance between the disciplinary depth, so how good a student is at using a particular instrument in lab and understanding how it works and what you can get out of it, with breadth that the student has to understand the context in terms of society and so on, how it connects with engineering and with other things. And from Greg's point of view, presumably, we have to have these trained technicians' support personnel and we need the professors who are actually teaching classes. Would this primarily be at the graduate level courses will be taught or undergraduate as well? So let me just clarify. Greg is not the laboratory technician. He's a PhD level scientist who manages our facilities. He's a lab manager. So with instrumentation as sophisticated as what we have in lab, we really have to have top-notch people to operate it. So in Greg's case, no, no, it's OK. But just give you a payway. What enabled us to really take advantage of what Greg could contribute is undergraduate education at Princeton and postgraduate education at Caltech. But it all comes together very nicely. We have a team of about 10 people in our group right now that grew from zero in about five years. I think we do things that are well-connected. People like working with us. We have extensive collaborations on campus and off campus. I think the shape of this interdisciplinary consortium that focuses on materials has enough connections to state agencies, to things that really impact everyday life that there is a good future. And I think because of this interdisciplinarity, just like what Hannah was saying, that the number of professional development options past your graduation is really significant. So it really sounds as if mental physics has a very bright future at the university and nationally as well. I'm an optimist. And it has been a very vibrant field where really exciting discoveries come almost weekly. Perfect. Well, unfortunately, we've run out of time. So let me thank Cemic, Hannah, and Greg for being on the show and to remind the viewers, you have been watching Think Tech Hawaii Research in Minnau. I've been your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and we've been hearing all about mineral physics. And Hannah, let me just wish you success with your PhD defense as well as your future career. And Greg, apologies again. I will promote you. Thank you as well, Cemic. Thank you very much. Until next week, we'll see you then. Goodbye.