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Aspirations in Science: a lecture by Dr G. Leggett
Aspirations in Science: a lecture by Dr G. Leggett
On Thursday 12 March there was a lunchtime lecture for year 12 and 13 science students by Dr. Graham Leggett. Dr Leggett works for LI-COR Biosciences and is involved in using specialist equipment to measure air pollutants and greenhouse gases.
The title of the lecture was:"Light, gases, and an example career in science".
After an introduction of himself and his school career, Dr Leggett explained what LI-COR Biosciences is and showed some equipment that is made by this company, used in medicine and environmental analysis.
He continued to explain how spectroscopy in general works. He showed and explained how different wavelengths of electromagnetic waves are being absorbed by molecules and make their bonds vibrate. Next he explained how lasers can be used to make this technique more sensitive, so you can measure ppm and ppb of gases of interest.
Spectroscopy is used in lots of different fields on interest, like semiconductors, environmental analysis, medicine, agriculture and even space!
He explained how his career went from working on semiconductors (and why spectroscopy is so important in the manufacturing), to particle physics and on to gas metrology at NPL (National Physical Laboratory), where they hold the standards for many scientific units. He finished this part by showing all the different types of jobs they require in a company like LI-COR.
The majority of his work now is related to environmental analysis and measuring the concentration of greenhouse gases in the air. He showed a piece of equipment that can be used on location to measure these gases and explained how it all worked.
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