 |
ARMENTROUT: |
|
My
name is Peter Armentrout. I work at
the chemistry department at the University
of Utah. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
kind of science do you do? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I'm a physical chemist or a chemical
physict... these days more of a physical
chemist. In particular, I work in the
area of mass spectrography, looking
at gas phase chemistry. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
Is
it research, theory, or experimental? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
It's
experimental, although we have a component
of theoretical chemistry that augments
the experimental work that we do. And
so it's all research. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
makes your science important? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I
like to think that it's important. I
mean one of the key things that we learn
about, eye molecule reactions turns
out to be important and a variety of
phenomena. Plasma processes, semi conductor
processing, ionesphere chemistry is
one of the areas where it's been looked
at extensively. But in the mean time
then we look at a lot of systems where
the idea is really to just understand
some of the fundemental chemistry that
occurs in a particular thermo dynamics
of chemical reactions. Thermo dynamics...
lets you predict whether or not a reaction
can take place, whether it needs a catylist
to take place, and whether or not you
need energy to put in to allow it to
occur. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
made you decide to go into the field
you study? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
In
this particular field was a bit of an
evolutionary process. I actually decided
that I'd was kind of interested in chemistry
back in high school. Largely as a result
of very good chemistry high school teacher.
Although I probably had an interest
in chemistry a little bit before that
as well. When I went to collegue I was
actually both a science and a chemistry
major and hooked up then with somebody
doing research gas phase molecule chemistry
as an undergraduate. So I did some undergraduate
research with him and he got me started
really in that particular area and then
went to work to get my PhD at Calt Tech.
I ended up working with another very
good guy. So that particular field has
held my interest for, gradually evolved,
for over a period of time during my
education. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
When
you mention "Plasma", is there
any way to control the energy of plasma
or is it too chaotic? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
For
the most part plasma is fairly chaotic
but of course the individual reactions
that occur are under reasonablely well
defined conditions so the real problem
with the plasma is that they really
are complex. There are a lot of things
going on under different conditions.
And so the modeling of the plasma, the
detailed modeling and understanding
of a plasma requires lots of different
components. What we try to do then is
actually provide some of the mechanistic
thermo dynamic and details kinetic information
neccesary for instance, model a plasma. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
And
of course you need the right temperature
for plasma. |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
In
a plasma it's interesting because a
plasma core very often is charaterized
by a temperature but only in certain
regions. In other regions then you have
a large capo drops (he's talking about
the drops on a graph. It looks like
black spots on a colored filled graph)
and things like that so energies of
charged particles can be very large
in regions like that and very small
then in other types of regions. And
so you need to know a very broad range
of energies and that's actually one
of the things that our research looks
like. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
So
if you control plasma you can control
a cast amount of energy. |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
Yeah. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
kind of education did you have? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I
have my PhD. I did then did a two year
postdoctoral before taking an academical
position. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
How
did you come to the U of U? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I
was at, actually the University of California
Berkley, before I came here and was
offered then. The department was looking
for bright young people to bring, especially
in physical chemistry at that time,
had identified me brought me an offer
that I couldn'y refuse. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
do you like most about your job? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
It's
the learning. It's the discovering.
And that actually has two components.
Both the scientific component. And the
enabling of students to see that same
kind of learning process of enabling
them to become scientists and see them
develop and so the part I like seeing
is both the students develop and science
develop and learning new things. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
And
of course you get new ideas from the
students asking questions. |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
Absolutely,
and so any time, in fact I think that's
one of the big advantages of research
in an academic enviroment is that your
constatly faced with going back to some
of the fundementals. Where as very often,
my postdoctoral state was in laboratories
in an industriel setting and there everyone
knows the basics already, everyone thinks
they know them and so they tend to forget,
I think some things that are useful
to go back and review periodically. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
And
of course a different perspective gives
you an advantage. |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
That's
right. Every once in a while a student
will come at it from a completely different
direction that you never thought of
or hadn't though of for quite some time
and that kind of freshness really does
help. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
do you like least about your job? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
Right now I'm chair and so the administrative,
there are a certain number of administrative
things that come along both with being
chair and for that matter being a faculty
member of any sort. Just monitoring
of what students do and whether or not
they are taking care of particular requirements,
various things like that, dealing with
money. None of those things are a particular
joy. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
hobbies do you have outside of science? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I
run. Just got back from a backpacking
trip (8/18/02). Do a little mountain
biking and play computer games and read. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
What
advice would you give to an aspiring
student? |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
I
think the key thing for somebody that's
interested, mathematically adept and
interested about the nature of the world
around them is to find something that
they're excited about. And because if
you're excited about it you tend to
work at it even when you dont have to
and that can carry you a long ways.
So if you try to second guess the system
and decide what someboy else thinks
is important and direct your education
to try to fill in an inch that somebody
else thinks is not the way to go. I
think you shouldn't change youself.
So if you're really excited about something
and you're good then you're going be
able to make it. |
|
|
ASPIRE: |
|
Alright,
thank you for your time. |
|
|
ARMENTROUT: |
|
No
problem. |
