Well, my mentor and I were almost to the point that we could start the laser ablation (PLD) and then we smelt something nasty. And we looked around to locate the origin of the odor and then we hear sirens. We then got out of the lab to see lights flashing and the people getting out. And as we went down the stairs, we noticed that the first floor was full of smoke. And then within 2 mins, the ORNL fire department and emergency vehicles pulled up. That was quick response! After we got out, we asked around to see anyone knew what the smoke was from. Once the firemen got out with a black burnt hunk of metal, we realize that it was a smoking tube furnace. I'm told that we might not be able to operate any tube furnaces for a while. That's a kink in our productivity because I still need to anneal substrates and don't want any setbacks. My mentor told me that Los Alamos had a bad laser accident and they shut down all the lasers in the lab for two months. That must have really slowed their scientific research down because a lot of science research is done by lasers. They are trying to figure out if the smoke was toxic or not. I guess we will be told soon enough. I've been told that safety is a serious issue at ORNL and it should be. Our division now has a ton of paper work to fill out about this and has deal with possible repercussions..
Lets see what happens now. We need to get back into the lab to finish my thin film growth.
Listening to: [Aqualung - Good Times Gonna Come]
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