NSF IRES China 2017
Week 1
June 24th-25th 2017
Today we began our journey to Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. The day was very tiresome for all of us as our flight left at 6:45 A.M. from LAX and most of us were so anxious that we didn’t sleep the night before. We decided to carpool to LAX and left the UCR campus at 2:30 in the morning and arrived at LAX at 3:45. Then came the taxing security checks before we could rest in the waiting area for our first flight to take off. Our, first flight took off from LAX and landed in SFX in about an hour and fifteen minutes, landing us there around 8:30 A.M. We then had a three-hour layover waiting for the real flight from San Francisco to Beijing. The flight was a long twelve hours to Beijing which we spent most of it napping here and there to try and recover some energy from our lack of sleep. We landed and proceeded through customs to meet up with Professor Albert Wang who then drove us to Tsinghua University. When we arrived at Tsinghua University met our two lovely host students Linyuan and Weijun who are both in the department for Microelectronics. They then took us to register for our housing for the next six weeks. Afterwards they took us out for our first meal in China. We ended up going to a restaurant that specialized in duck dishes. The portions for meals here are very deceiving to the eye as it doesn’t seem like much food, but the portions are very delicious and filling. Afterwards, we made our way back to our housing to have a quick meeting for the next day and then we all proceeded to get some much-needed sleep, which ended our first day here in China.
June 26th 2017
Today marked our first full day in China. We began the day with breakfast at the Zijingyuan Cafeteria, which is a whopping four stories and that is just one of many cafeterias around campus. They had so many options for breakfast that it was very hard for us to decide. After, filling our stomachs we began the tour of the campus while dealing with our registration for Tsinghua University. The Tsinghua campus is bigger when compared to UCR. We noticed though that the university students and most other people in general either use electric mopeds or bicycles to get around. They have a bicycle sharing system that uses their phone to unlock the bike, so there are bicycles everywhere around campus. Towards the early afternoon, we left the campus on foot to go and activate our cellphones for China and during the activation process we ended up having lunch at a ramen shop by the name of Mr. Lee’s Noodles, which served huge portions of noodles. After filling ourselves once again we proceeded back to get our Chinese cellphones and then headed off to the China Construction Bank to open up accounts so that way we can pay for our supplies during our stay here in China. As, this took up a good portion of our day we proceeded to try the Dingxiangyuan Cafeteria for dinner, which again had a multitude of choices, which not only made it hard to decide what to eat it, but also made us limit ourselves otherwise we would have ordered too much food as everything looked so tasty. And after filling ourselves once again half of us made our way back, while the other half went to the supermarket on bikes to get some supplies. The supermarket near Tsinghua is three stories and seems to have almost everything that one could need. Afterwards, we met up once again to decide the schedule for the next day and then disbanded to get some much-needed sleep.
June 27th 2017
This marks our second full day in China, but our third overall. Today we started our day by using the bike system to go to the Qingfenyuan cafeteria and this place as well is multiple floors and has a plethora of options for breakfast as well. Afterwards we toured around the campus as we continued our registration process. We then returned to Zijingyuan Cafeteria to try what they offered for lunch, and were once again stuck trying to decide which dishes we wanted as they all looked so appetizing. After, lunch we then journeyed on bikes to the subway system where we got a subway card and began our ride to Tiananmen Square. We spent the rest of our day here taking the sites as well as visiting the National Museum of China. There were so many breathtaking cultural pieces that we could see in person that allowed us to see the past of China and its heritage that brought it to where it stands today. After, only two days here we already started to miss American food, so we stopped at a McDonalds before our return to campus, to satisfy our cravings. After our long return trip on the subway, we biked to the gymnasium on campus, which is humungous, to register for gym usage during our stay as the portions of food are so filling that we all decided that the gym could help us stay in shape. We then had our daily meeting to plan for the next day, that left us excited as tomorrow marks the first day that we begin our experimenting and working in the lab here at Tsinghua.
June 28th 2017
Today was a very simple day. We began our day like usual meeting up with Weijun and Linyuan for breakfast at one of the student cafeterias. Afterwards they took us to the campus to sight see and explore to continue getting us familiar with the campus. We then spent most of the day resting as we were going to participate in Tsinghua’s Graduation Run. The graduation run was held at night and it was such a blast as it was an event that was designed for enjoyment. We began the event taking photos with the department flag for Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics. It then turned into a water fight as Tsinghua provided toy squirt guns and it became like a free for all. The run was around the Tsinghua campus with many props for people to take photos. One of the interesting points on the run was the bubble machine that just lathered people in bubbles. When we completed the course, we ended up receiving certificate and medals for completing the event. We then proceeded to drag our exhausted bodies back to the dorm to sleep and prepare for the next day as it became our official day for when we would go to the lab for the first time.
June 29th 2017
Today we were finally got to go to the Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics lab. We were all excited. When we arrived, we toured around the building to get acquainted with our new surrounding as this is where we will be spending about two thirds of our stay in Tsinghua to do some research on semiconductors and transistors. When we arrived at the fourth floor, which houses our department, we were provided student cubicles that we got to set up to our liking. We then continued our day with some brief orientations and then read the materials that were left to us so that we could become familiar with our research topic. We ended our day with dinner from the student cafeterias and then proceeded to rest as tomorrow we have an early day ahead of us, so we needed to be well rested.
June 30th 2017
Today we began our day like usual visiting one of the many student cafeterias for breakfast. Afterwards we made our way to the lab to meet up with Weijun and Linyuan and from there they took us to a seminar held by Sharon Hu from Notre Dame University which covered the topic of Exploiting Ferroelectric FETs (FeFETs). Although, some of the concepts discussed were beyond our comprehension, the point of the seminar was to present the research on how FeFETs could be faster and cooler than some of its current counter parts as well as having the attribute of being non-volatile, which is a great thing when dealing with memory. What was interesting to note from the presentation is that FeFETs still use a process called hysteresis, whereas most of its competitors try to minimize this process. After spending our morning at the seminar, we grabbed lunch and had a slight rest. In the afternoon, we went to visit the Science and Technology library. We ended up spending some of time engrossed in some of the books on transistors and semiconductors as it applies to our research topic during our stay here in Tsinghua. Finally, we ended our day with a light dinner at the student cafeteria.
July 1st 2017
Today marks the end of our first week since we left the United States. We have experienced so many sights and tasted lots of different and wonderful foods in our short time here. However, today sightseeing trip surpasses all that we have seen so far during our stay, as we visited the Summer Palace and what a sight it was to behold. When we first entered the Summer Palace our first stop was Suzhou Street. According to what we learned this area was a shopping area that royalty used and was designed to mimic a commoners shopping area, so that royalty to feel like a commoner when shopping. After leaving this area, we started ascending the Longevity Mountain and into the Sida Buzhou (Four Great Regions) which is a group of Buddhist structures that were made from Tibetan architecture. What is interesting to note is that parts of the Summer Palace were destroyed by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in the 1860s and the rebuilding process of the Summer Palace was not completed until 1980. After, viewing these marvelous buildings we descended until we reached Kunming Lake. There we rented some paddle boats and made our way around the lake. We got to see many sights from the lake, such as the Qingyan Boat, the Tower of Buddhist Incense, the 17-Arch Bridge, and the Dragon King’s Temple. Following our excursion on the lake we proceeded to our last stop, the Tower of Buddhist Incense, and had to climb a multitude of steep stairs, but the view from the top that overlooks the lake is breathtaking as well as the temple that stands at the summit. Once we exited from the Summer Palace after spending most of our day there, we proceeded to go eat dinner in a six-story mall at a restaurant called Charme, where we all had delicious meals and then returned to campus to end our day.