Joining the Molecular Thin Film Lab

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How to join the Gredig Molecular Thin Film Lab Research Group
Author

Thomas Gredig

Published

March 19, 2026

Checklist

Basic research in the Gredig Molecular Thin Film Lab is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. The most important pre-requisite is interest in experimental condensed matter physics. Preparation to become a successful contributor begins with a few skills that can be learned and should be approached in this sequence.

Literature

Research happens at the cutting-edge of knowledge. Knowing the current research questions is an on-going tasks. Use one of the literature search engines to explore your topics:

Read specific articles to expand your vocabulary and learn about specific examples, including:

Take notes when reading the article; look at the motivation (first paragraph), and the message that the article carries; so that you can refer to previous data on which you build forward.

Posters

Use the PosterDown Rmd package to create posters using R language; it will generate HTML posters, that you can print to PDF, although some colors may not reproduce well. Alternatively the Postr package allows direct export to PDF.

Analysis Software

All data must be analyzed in a reproducible manner; anyone, at any later time, must be able to reproduce the analysis. Therefore, it is important to label, and name files systematically.

Important: read about Data File Conventions. Briefly, the format is as follows (Example: 20170501_BiThermal_SF_VSM_SF20170426_MvsH-5K.DAT):

  • Date_Project_Initials_Tool_Sample_RunInfo.csv

Thus, each raw data filename has exactly 5 underscores. The tools to analyze the data (reproducible) should be open-source, so that they can be used by anyone. We recommend learning the following tools:

Several R libraries specific to our data analysis are publicly available via Github, including:

Ethics and Conduct

Ethical behavior has a long tradition in science and is necessary for its continuation. The University has an office of student conduct and ethical development, which outlines policies. Misconduct in science centers around reporting research results that are fabricated, plagiarized, and or falsified, see APS Ethics. Appropriate conduct includes

  • proper record-keeping;
  • truthful, careful handling and reporting of data;
  • responsible, respectful interactions with peers and subordinates;
  • adherence to journal publication guidelines, including proper recognition of research contributions.

We can use some basic rules from sociologist Robert Merton (1910 - 2003) who is known for his work on “unintended consequences”. The Mertonian norms provide a guide for doing scientific research. Using the mnemonic CUDOS, the scientific principles should follow Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Originality, and Skepticism. For more information, see Book: Advanced Experimental Methods: NMR, AFM, Arduino, Lithography, T. Gredig

Comprehensive Powerpoint File

Keep a lengthy comprehensive powerpoint file. It should include data more or less in chronological order at this point. It includes photos with details. It is not important to keep it organized, but rather it is important to keep it clean and updated. Regularly, add details, data, information, and observations. It should contain 100 - 300 slides. The slides can include photos of samples, personal reviews and snippets of literature, graphs from results, calculations from the analysis, schematics and plans. Use the notes section to add folder, filenames, and other information pertinent to the graphs. Photos and data files may additionally need to be stored in the RAW folder.

Goals

Joining an experimental condensed matter research group means that you can learn a variety of skills. Depending on your interest, you may want to focus on some of those skills:

  • practical skills to run new scientific instrumentation and learn about standard operating procedures, run atomic force microscopes, thermal evaporators, and know about vacuum technologies
  • process big data sets, learn computational skills, modeling, graphing using software, such as R, ggplot2, Quarto, etc.
  • design components, construct apparati, 3D print, fix instruments, calibrate and maintain equipment

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@misc{gredig2026,
  author = {Gredig, Thomas and Gredig, Thomas},
  title = {Joining the {Molecular} {Thin} {Film} {Lab}},
  date = {2026-03-19},
  url = {https://www.csulb.edu/~tgredig/posts/JoinResearchGroup/},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Gredig, Thomas, and Thomas Gredig. 2026. “Joining the Molecular Thin Film Lab.” Preprint, March 19. https://www.csulb.edu/~tgredig/posts/JoinResearchGroup/.