Stanford and SLAC

Tuesday morning, at the brink of daylight (OK, maybe not that early) we left San Francisco for Stanford. After a short drive filled with some good music (in our car, at least) we arrived at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, SLAC. Here we were greeted by an American physicist who was surprisingly capable in pronouncing ``Nijmegen". It all made sense when we found out that he had worked in the group of Theo Rasing at the Radboud University before he came to SLAC. He took us to a conference room, which unfortunately lacked the necessary amount of coffee, and gave us a short intro on the facility. About halfway through his introduction a German physicist entered, his head was sweaty, he must have been in a hurry, or not well adapted to the California weather. At any rate, he was introduced as the guy knowing much more about the accelerator and the history of SLAC than our American friend. Besides his extensive knowledge on the lab, we also took notice of his dry sense of humour. The way he smiled after making a joke vaguely reminded me of one of our lecturers back in Nijmegen, but maybe that was just me. After our intro, our guides took us to the accelerator beam (it was switched off, for maintenance). A few kilometres of beam, chopped up in various sections for various experiments. Our German guide expressed his boredom with the beam, as it was the same for hundreds of meters, so we swiftly moved on. We were brought to one of the experimental halls. Our American guide said some words about the experiments done on that location, Giel (our scientific guide) recognized a lot of it. We are also getting quite familiar with pump probe experiments by now, it seems a recurring theme of our trip.

At about 11 o'clock we left the facility and went on our way to Stanford University. We had lunch at a mall with free parking and went on by foot. After about half an hour we reached a conference room at Stanford, where we met our next host. Daniel Palankers group worked on technologies for vision restoration. He gave us a presentation on eye implants to replace damaged rod cells in the retina, after that he showed us movies about cataract operations. I must admit that I was not entirely prepared for the sudden sight of a scalpel in an eye, luckily, we were able to cope.

Our next appointment was at the Stanford Nano Fabrication lab. We were given a tour around the clean rooms and some of us were given a chance to put on a body suit (lovely pictures were made). Next we were taken to another nano facility, the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities. After these nano tours we went for a bite (and some great ice cream) at Tresidder student union, a conglomeration of various restaurants and coffee bars at the Stanford campus. We ended up sitting in the Californian sun, while students behind us were preparing for a manifestation against sexual violence. All in all, Stanford was a pretty fancy place. The campus was very spacious and green. It would be great if Nijmegen could achieve some of that atmosphere.

The last stop on our day was the Wall Mart near Stanford. For many of us, it was the first time in a large American store. It was quite a sight to behold, some members of our group got to enjoy the ride in motorized shopping carts (which are actually meant for disabled people). After this slight culture shock, we returned back to the hostel, our minds filled with new experiences, and our bags filled with (relatively) cheap beer.

Daan