Definition
Plain language
How long something stays pressed or held in place.
As stated in the literature
A parameter in graphene exfoliation specifying how long the tape is held on the substrate before peeling; one of the variables Qumus tuned autonomously.
Why it matters: Tuning unglamorous parameters like dwell time is exactly the kind of careful, repetitive optimization where autonomous lab agents can make real progress.
For example, in graphene exfoliation, the tape is pressed onto the crystal for two seconds before peeling, and that two-second dwell time turns out to matter as much as peel angle.
Heard on the show
“6, it runs five experiments over four hours, varying substrate temperature, dwell time, the number of "massage cycles" where the tape is pressed against the chip, and peel speed.”Episode 072 — A Robot Made Graphene Without Help, And Caught Itself Hallucinating