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Designing a Quadrupole Ion Trap

As a thesis student in college, my worked on the design and implementation of a quadrupole ion trap, which was coupled to a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The ultimate goal of my project, and the lab in its entirety, is to witness beryllium and oxygen ions as they move from their ground state (within a Coulomb Crysal) to eleventh excited state to study time variations of fundamental constants. In layman's terms: we wanted to witness how fundamental particles like electrons and protons might change mass when they're manipulated. These changes may point to evidence of dark matter, and help us understand how it reacts with "light" matter. 
This project allowed me to crystallize (no pun intended) my physics degree while also refining my design and engineering skills.

 You can find more about the lab and the research here:

https://dhanneke.people.amherst.edu/research.shtml

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