Dispatches from Cuba: Physics at the University of Havana

Physics Today‘s Toni Feder is traveling to Cuba to learn about the country’s physics community and how it has been affected by the recent thaw in US–Cuba relations. She’ll be blogging about her experiences through mid-December. You can read Toni’s previous post here .

Monday, 5 December 2016

This morning University of Havana physicist Ernesto Altshuler came by to pick me up at my casa particular and take me to the school. I spent much of the morning talking with three physicists. One of them, vice dean for research activities Roberto Mulet, gave me a tour of campus. There were friendly hellos whenever Roberto saw someone he knew, with handshakes and backslaps for men and quick kisses on the cheek for women.

The physics building is lovely and airy, with high ceilings and tile floors. Offices and classrooms are arranged off central covered terraces surrounding a courtyard. Previously home to engineers and architects, the building, which is the campus’s largest, boasts Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.

The physicists moved back into the building a couple of months ago, following a much-needed renovation that has taken 10 years (and counting). So far, the top two floors are ready. In the coming years, the lower two floors, where the labs are to be, will be renovated, and other physicists will move back into the building from the temporary locations where they’ve been scattered.

The physics building is the second to be renovated; the law building, where Fidel Castro studied, was overhauled first. The University of Havana is a place of pride for Cuba. Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II, and other visiting dignitaries have come to the university. (An interesting historical tidbit: Christmas Day became an official holiday in Cuba because of the pope’s 1998 visit.)

On the way to lunch another physicist told me he doesn’t speak English well. I asked if he spoke German. Sure enough, he had spent time in Dresden when it was part of East Germany and the communist bloc. For Cuba, the end of the Soviet Union marked the start of an economic crisis. Today, Cuban physicists are still using equipment from the Soviet Union. When they travel, they bring back used equipment that their colleagues abroad no longer need. “We find ways, and we are proud of it,” Ernesto says.

But how do physicists and other professionals survive on salaries that are smaller than a waitress’s? Senior physicists earn about 1000 Cuban pesos a month. That’s around $40. (That’s about what I spend on chocolate in a month!) Ernesto says he once met a taxi driver who was also a neurosurgeon. Some people rent out rooms to tourists. Others receive money from relatives in the US. For the most part, though, the physicists try to spend one to two months a year on invited trips abroad, where they teach and collaborate on research while receiving stipends that help make ends meet back home. At least education and healthcare are free.

After lunch Maruchy (Cuban Physical Society president María Sánchez) showed me her lab. Until the ground level of the physics building is ready for her and others to move back in, she has a couple of tiny rooms in a materials institute off campus, about 300 meters away. Maruchy and her three students have a homemade setup for conducting surface photovoltage spectroscopy. She saw a colleague’s commercial setup in Spain and thought, “I can do this.” The apparatus includes a chopper made by students and a spectrometer obtained from the Soviet Union in the 1990s. “It’s one of the last things we got from Russia,” Maruchy says. Her screen-less laptop serves as the control system and processes the signals.

Using the setup, the researchers shine monochromatic light on samples to determine their compositions and study the interfaces between layers. In one project, the scientists measure samples made by colleagues in Mexico who want to optimize nanocrystals for absorbing sunlight—basic research driven by an idea for solar cells. One of Maruchy’s students told me he wants to do a postdoc abroad and then return to Cuba. Another is finishing his master’s degree and said he hopes to go abroad indefinitely.

This afternoon I made my first attempt to go online with my computer. One of Maruchy’s students arranged for me to access the Wi-Fi in their lab. But when I tried to log on via Gmail, this message came up: “It looks like you’re trying to sign in from a country where Google Apps accounts aren’t supported.” Luckily I brought a flash drive, so I can send text and images from someone else’s account.