By Thao Dinh
This summer, I had an opportunity to become a UTSIP participant working in Prof. Satoru Nakatsuji’s lab, Institute of Solid State Physics at Kashiwa campus. Time passed by too fast, I could not believe in how much I learned, how many awesome people I met and how many beautiful places in Tokyo I visited in just a short 6-week period.
My work at Nakatsuji’s lab has been quite demanding but I am so glad to have the chance to conduct research about 3D topological materials, in particular ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic Weyl metals. This topic has always been my main research interest in two years of studying at MIT. Although the time is limited, I feel so lucky that on the last week of the program, I finally got very nice data to report at the final presentation of the program. I enjoyed the lab work not only because of the interesting research topic but also because of the friendliness from lab members. Despite his busy schedule, my PI, Prof. Nakatsuji, always asked if I felt ok whenever I had chance to meet him. My direct supervisor Tomita-san spent his precious time to try to teach me as many as possible in a short period of time. I have learned a lot from the theoretical background about 3D topological materials to the experimental skills need for the project such as wire bonding, sample polishing and mounting, as well as measurement controlling by LabVIEW,…
During the weekends, I spent all my free time to travel around Tokyo. All the landmarks are so beautiful and the city is so big that I think during those 6 weeks, I had only explored small part of it. I’ve had amazing memories in every single place I’ve passed by: the enormous quarry in Nokogiri-yama, the beautiful Sankeien garden and crowded Chinatown of Yokohama, the fun time at Disneyland, the peaceful atmosphere in Ueno and Yoyogi parks, the interesting shops around Shibuya and Harajuku, and the unique decoration of Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri.
I also have a lot of new friends thanks to UTSIP. We, UTSIP participants, are all from different countries, different cultures. Just in 6 weeks, we shared with each other many interesting stories about our own unique cultures as well as explored the city and learned about Japanese culture together. I cherished every single moments I had with them.
Lastly, I want to thank UTSIP and Prof. Satoru Nakatsuji for offering me this precious opportunity, thank Dr. Tomita for his dedicated supervision, thank FUTI for your generous support, and finally thank all the peers and mentors I met here for helping me grow throughout the program.
