A Long Day's Night Page 9

  'Fine,' Brennan concurred.

  'Our stand is rather simple,' Virendra made a gentle assertion, 'we placed an order with MatTech for an electron microscope. The equipment was to have the additional feature of an arrangement for exposing the sample in situ to an external gas, pressure going up to one atmosphere, so that we could look at surface structural changes of the substrate without taking the sample out of its initial mount. We listed the accessories that were required, specified a delivery time, at a price that you had quoted. MatTech failed to supply the equipment within the specified time of three months. The equipment that was supplied after one year did not function anywhere near the specifications, and the company has not done the necessary rectification even after three years from the date of placement of the order.'

  'Well, first it is not correct that the instrument is not working. It has shown high resolution electron micrographs of your sample. The responsibility of MatTech remains within the physical confines of the instrument; the arrangement to expose the sample to pure or mixed gases is yours, and my understanding is that the arrangement you provided was rather unsatisfactory,' Brennan responded. Virendra realised that Brennan had all the information about the problems they had here the last time to have a simple gas connection to the instrument owing to the non-availability of a nitric oxide regulator. They had to make a contraption which though scientifically acceptable, was technically very messy. But that could have hardly had anything to do with the fact that the machine would not show any micrograph at all when the gas exposure took place. In fact, there were indications of some internal design problems.

  'Yes,' Virendra took the charge frontally, 'we had some problems with the gas connection as we did not have a proper nitric oxide regulator. The line we put together could even be called messy. That, however, could not be made responsible for the total blanking out of the micrograph image from the screen for a couple of hours. The external gas supply could quite legitimately be a mixed test gas; so even if the external line was leaking, quite within the specifications, we should have seen a micrograph.' Brennan did not reply along the line Virendra charged. Perhaps he was conceding that Virendra was not such a simpleton as he thought him to be. He chose a different line, 'But as regards the sample mounting arrangement with respect to the electron beam, you suggested to Dr Stratham how it was to be, and it was done accordingly.'

  Virendra remembered the telephone call he once had from Dr Stratham of overseas MatTech, more than four months after the order was placed, and after the projected delivery time was over. At that time MatTech had not even started designing their composite equipment, and Dr Stratham aired his own ideas about it and took Virendra's views, little of which appeared in the final design. The blueprint that MatTech sent some time later did not have any details of the parts; it was more of an overall sketch. Virendra asked for more information, but there was no response.

  'I am sorry that I cannot agree with you on that,' Virendra said with quite a serious face, 'first, according to the terms of the order it was not our responsibility to provide design suggestions. MatTech's quotation implied that it knew how to design such an instrument. If we agreed to discuss our ideas with Dr Stratham, that could not be levelled as a charge against us. Further, he did not provide us with the final design drawing and seek our approval if our participation was thought to be an integral part by MatTech. In fact, I believe that if he did provide a detailed drawing, certain flaws could have become apparent.'

  'Do you think there is a design flaw?' Brennan looked at Virendra keenly and promptly asked.

  'It is not within our responsibility, as customers, to point out design faults in your machine. We simply examine the terminal specifications of the instrument from its performance, and say whether the instrument is performing satisfactorily or not,' Virendra did not answer the question directly. He felt quietly pleased with his performance, but then thought it did not deserve any credit – he was dealing with a much younger person and that too on foreign soil.

  'I suppose that's correct,' Brennan conceded. But his curiosity had been aroused. Yet he could not do anything right at the moment; perhaps there would be another opportunity. He decided to change the tenor of the discussion. 'Let me ask a different question,' he added after a short pause, 'could you state in terms as tangible as possible, ignoring whatever has happened in the past, what you would like MatTech precisely to do now,' he emphasised the word 'now,' 'so that you would consider the instrument as installed.'

  Virendra perceived that Brennan was now seeking a set of informal requirements, so that he could get out of the near deadlock. That would be the situation when MatTech realised that it could not escape unscathed even though it had collected the full payment for the instrument. Virendra had felt quite a long time ago that providing an equipment matching the committed specifications was beyond MatTech's technical ability. Further, with the size of the vacuum system it provided, it was impossible to handle the external gas flow at one atmosphere pressure, and probably it could not provide it with the money it asked for; the quotation was grossly impractical. Therefore pressing for those specifications was futile, that simply could not be satisfied. But how much concession to make?

  Virendra responded, 'It is impossible to forget or forgo all the past, because there are legal implications. But informally I can say that acceptable electron micrographs have to be demonstrated at least up to ten torr of pressure, before we can think of accepting the instrument as installed.'

  'What exactly do you mean by "acceptable" electron micrographs?' Brennan required a precise definition.

  Virendra gave it a moment of thought, then said, 'Well, I should say a resolution of at least five nanometer,' and then added, 'and that must be visible within about a minute after the external gas is switched off.'

  It was not clear what was going on in Brennan's mind. Obviously that was not an easy task, especially when at present the machine was not recovering within two hours from the external gas exposure. Brennan remained quiet and pensive for some time, looking up and gazing at the wall cupboard, oblivious of other things. Most likely he was thinking about the feasibilities. Agarwal also was guessing Brennan's thoughts; although he had been quiet all along, he had been keenly following all the conversation, because as soon as Brennan left, the local responsibility of communication would fall on his agency. Brennan kept on thinking something; Virendra broke the silence.

  'Also, besides what I just said, there is a requirement on the time within which it has to be made operational,' Virendra said.

  'Surely,' Brennan said half turning his head towards Virendra, and catching Virendra's gaze through the corner of his eye. But he was still immersed in his own thoughts, perhaps because of that reason it did not occur to him to ask Virendra to specify that time period.

  Even though Virendra was realising that his points were reaching the destination and were having some effect, he was not feeling any real satisfaction, because he realised well that until the machine actually worked, there was no material progress. And also, Brennan had not made any concessions yet.

  Right at that time, the door slowly opened and Sreekanth entered the room. 'Sir, the pressure now has gone into the minus seven range,' he said looking at Virendra, and after he was finished, he looked at Brennan conveying the same information.

  'Well, that's nice. We have something to do now.' Brennan emphasised the 'now' and threw a pleasant smile at Sreekanth. Brennan's eyes twinkled and a dimple appeared on his left cheek close to the extremity of his lips. He was almost relieved. Looking at Sreekanth he said, 'Let us go and see what the microscope has to say.' He got up from his chair and looked at Virendra who was still sitting; he waited for Virendra to get up as Virendra's chair was on his way out. Virendra nodded a couple of times, looked at Brennan pleasantly, lifted himself from the chair, turned left and made a move towards the door. Sreekanth was ahead of him, Brennan and Agarwal behind. All of them walked into the front room.

  They stepped
towards the instrument. Brennan turned back from there, went to the laboratory table and put inside the briefcase the bunch of papers he had carried to the other room. He then returned to the machine; others moved and made room for him to reach the control panel table. He sat down on the chair in front of it and concentrated on the digital panel meter. He seemed satisfied with the reading.

  He then looked at a panel to the right which controlled the electron beam. He turned on the main beam control switch. He looked at the beam current panel meter, turned a knob which varied the beam current and set the beam current to ten milliamperes. He then looked at the centre where the main electron micrograph viewer was and turned on the monitor. In a few seconds a white light flooded the screen and then abruptly the screen became dark. Brennan waited without any reaction. He put his right hand on the beam control panel and turned a knob slightly keeping his eyes on the micrograph monitor. While he was turning the knob, he asked, presumably Virendra, 'Do you have any sample inside at the moment?'

  'Yes. Pure nickel,' Virendra replied.

  Brennan heard but did not react to it. He continued to turn the knobs on the beam control panel which indicated currents at various focusing stages as it came down from the electron gun to the sample stage. Brennan went on optimising currents at each stage so that the condition was optimum for obtaining an electron micrograph of the sample. Besides the focusing, there were several stages of acceleration of the beam electrons, controls for which also were on the panel. There was another set of digital meters which displayed the beam energy at various stages. All those little meters were glowing, and in an ordered manner. Brennan went on adjusting the controls.

  Suddenly an image structure flashed on the screen. Brennan looked at the monitor screen, raised his eyebrows, enlarged his eyes, and pouted his lips and remained that way for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded and smiled, and relaxed his face to normal. So, that was the first signpost of success; it would be easy now to sharpen the micrograph by suitable fine control of the electron beam energy. He knew very well how to do that. He relaxed back letting his back go to the backrest of his chair, put his two hands down at the sides and put two thumbs in the two side pockets of his trousers and let the remaining fingers hang. It was well worth a couple of minutes of rest. The screen was showing a rudimentary nickel micrograph.

  It could be three or four minutes for which he rested and did not say anything. Virendra said, 'To this point and a bit more beyond it works all right.' There was no response from Brennan. Sreekanth and Agarwal were standing beside Virendra; Agarwal turned around and went to the laboratory table and sat down on a chair. He looked somewhat tired. Sreekanth did not say anything; he was interested to know what Brennan would do next and more so about what Brennan would do to expose the sample to an external gas.

  Brennan got out of his relaxed mode with a start. He leaned forward again towards the control panel, but rather than turn the knobs, he turned on the computer monitor which was just in front of him. It seemed that he would do the fine focusing using the computer control. He let the monitor come alive, flipped a switch on the beam control panel which took the machine from manual to computer control. The computer prompt on the monitor started blinking, ready for a command. He typed 'auto beam control' from the keyboard in front of it, and entered the command into the computer by pressing the return key. The computer reacted by asking the final beam voltage in kilo electron volts. He entered the number two. The computer asked about the magnitude of the beam current in milliamperes. Brennan again entered the number two, and pressed the return key.

  The computer monitor flashed the message 'wait.' Along with Brennan, Virendra and Sreekanth waited. The computer was iterating its programs into a fine optimisation for the beam current and accelerating voltage so that the sharpness of the micrograph was best. Every fifteen seconds the digital meters of the beam control panel would flip to new numbers, and simultaneously the electron micrograph changed; at every such stage it became sharper. After ten such steps, the 'wait' signal disappeared from the monitor screen, and it flashed 'auto beam control program executed.' Brennan read the message, looked at the micrograph image, and said to Virendra without turning his head, 'Here is a five nanometer resolution image of your nickel surface.'

  Virendra was going to say something, but the telephone rang. Sreekanth went to the laboratory table and took the phone. A moment later he looked at Virendra and said, 'Sir, it is for you.'

  Virendra walked to the table, took the telephone receiver from Sreekanth's hand, and put it to his ear. It was Mukul. The message was that he could not get the nitric oxide regulator from Dr Jha; Dr Jha refused to lend it out even for a day. Apparently he said that the regulator was still unpacked and he did not like to risk it. Virendra listened more and said less on the phone; he did not want Brennan and Agarwal to get the full message of Mukul's efforts. Virendra simply said, 'I understand what you are saying. But don't give up so soon.' He returned to the instrument. 'It looks fine,' Virendra said, 'but up to this point we have seen it work before. The problem starts when we go further ahead.'

  'We shall try it now with an external gas,' Brennan said. And then pausing a moment, asked, 'What gas do you want to try it out with?'

  Virendra would have liked to try it out with nitric oxide – the gas with which he had planned Sreekanth's experiments. But right now although he had a nitric oxide gas cylinder, he did not have the right regulator. And it was impossibly complicated to make a neat connection without the right regulator. He worried, because he knew MatTech could use any such lapse to its own advantage.

  'We would have liked to try it out with nitric oxide, but someone borrowed our nitric oxide regulator and at the moment it is not available,' Virendra said. 'So as an alternative we could use carbon dioxide, ammonia, or helium. Do you have any preference among these?' Virendra asked.

  Brennan pondered for a minute. Virendra knew that Brennan would choose the one which was likely to give least trouble. Probably it would be helium. Virendra would have liked to have a reactive gas, but one advantage of trying with helium would be that the laboratory had the necessary fittings available. The other advantage with the least problematic gas would be that if there were true design faults they would come out more clearly. Virendra waited for Brennan's response. Brennan looked at Virendra thoughtfully and said, 'Let us try helium.'

  Before Virendra could say something to Sreekanth, Sreekanth had already started walking to the other laboratory saying, 'I shall get the necessary fittings.' He disappeared into the other laboratory; Virendra and Brennan waited at the instrument, and Agarwal kept watching the scene from his chair. Brennan had demonstrated his machine's performance up to a stage, yet he showed signs of tension; it seemed that he was concerned about the consequence of the next set of tests. Virendra also was tense; he was uncertain how the machine would behave with helium; with nitric oxide he would have been at least sure that it would not work. If it worked with helium and then he could not assemble a line of nitric oxide quickly enough for a second test, it would again draw the matter into another kind of controversy.

  Sreekanth returned with a handful of fittings and a couple of long stainless steel capillaries. Virendra went forward and took some in his own hands, and then together they went behind the machine where a set of gas cylinders was standing next to the wall. The helium cylinder already had a two-stage regulator on it; Sreekanth connected a stainless steel tube with a fitting on it to the regulator, made some connections at the other end, connected another stainless steel tube at that end and pulled the line to the flange on the electron microscope which was supposed to be for external gas connection. Brennan kept sitting at the console intently watching the process. Only when Virendra and Sreekanth had tightened the gas line connection on the instrument flange, did Brennan get up and walk to the side of the instrument to check how it looked.

  The main door to the laboratory opened with the sound of the key opening the lock and Varma entered. He came inside
opening the glass door. Virendra asked, 'Did you find Parvati? Could you arrange something for Dr Brennan and Mr Agarwal's lunch?'

  'Yes sir, everything has been arranged. The lunch will be here around one.' Varma said in one breath. His face was red, and on his forehead there were droplets of sweat.

  'Was it hot outside?' Virendra asked.

  'Very hot sir. Like a furnace. Today probably is the hottest day of the season,' Varma smiled. The smile was an expression of familiarity with such hot weather.

  Virendra frowned, then relaxed, and turned towards Brennan. Brennan was still at the flange with Sreekanth. Virendra asked Brennan from a distance, 'Do you think that the connection is all right?'

  'It looks all right,' Brennan said. 'We shall soon see what message it has for us when the gas enters the instrument. What pressure did you use last time?'

  'Well, we used a different gas at that time – nitric oxide. But we did not go beyond ten torr, and we had difficulty. The order specification however calls for one atmosphere for exposure.' Virendra said at a stretch without stopping.

  Virendra did not know how Brennan felt being constantly reminded about the formal specifications. Virendra thought if he were in Brennan's position he would not have liked it. He felt like controlling himself, but once in a while, Virendra could not help mentioning it. Brennan was checking a pressure meter which read the pressure inside the manifold connected to the region where the external gas exposure took place. He did not react. Some time later, raising his head a little he looked towards Sreekanth, and when his eyes met Sreekanth's, he said, 'Could you now open the valve slowly to let in some gas? Hold it when I ask you to do so.'

  Sreekanth nodded in assent, went to the regulator valve at the cylinder. Brennan closed a valve at the exit side of the main chamber, turned the electron beam off at the beam control panel, and nodded to Sreekanth. Sreekanth then slowly opened the valve while keeping his eyes fixed on Brennan. Brennan kept looking at the pressure meter of the chamber. When the meter reading was crossing nine torr, he raised a hand to Sreekanth asking him to hold. Sreekanth let his hand off the valve. Brennan looked at his watch and kept looking at it for a minute, only raising his head a couple of times to see whether everything else was all right. At the end of the minute he said to Sreekanth, 'Close the valve now.' He opened the exit valve then, the pressure started quickly going down, he relaxed and sat back on the chair. Sreekanth came around to the front side of the instrument and stood beside Virendra.