The New Journal of Physics (NJP) has long been a flagship journal for IOP Publishing. The journal published its first volume in 1998 and was an early pioneer of open-access publishing. Co-owned by the Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics World, and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG), after some 25 years the journal is now seeking to establish itself further as a journal that represents the entire range of physics disciplines.

NJP publishes articles in pure, applied, theoretical and experimental research, as well as interdisciplinary topics. Research areas include optics, condensed-matter physics, quantum science and statistical physics, and the journal publishes a range of article types such as papers, topical reviews, fast-track communications, perspectives and special issues.

While NJP has been seen as a leading journal for quantum information, optics and condensed-matter physics, the journal is currently undergoing a significant transformation to broaden its scope to attract a wider array of physics disciplines. This shift aims to enhance the journal’s relevance, foster a broader audience and maintain NJP’s position as a leading publication in the global scientific community.

While quantum physics in general, and quantum optics and quantum information in particular, will remain crucial areas for the journal, researchers in other fields such as gravitational-wave research, condensed- and soft-matter physics, polymer physics, theoretical chemistry, statistical and mathematical physics are being encouraged to submit their articles to the journal. “It’s a reminder to the community that NJP is a journal for all kinds of physics and not just a select few,” says quantum physicist Andreas Buchleitner from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg who is NJP’s editor-in-chief.

Historically, NJP has had a strong focus on theoretical physics, particularly in quantum information. Yet another significant aspect of NJP’s new strategy is the inclusion of more experimental research. Attracting high-quality experimental papers to balance its content and enhance its reputation as a comprehensive physics journal, will also allow it to compete with other leading physics journals. Part of this shift will also involve attracting a reliable and loyal group of authors who regularly publish their best work in NJP.

A broader scope

To aid this move, NJP has recently grown its editorial board to add expertise in subjects such as gravitational-wave physics. This diversity of capabilities is crucial to evaluate submissions from different areas of physics and maintain high standards of quality during the peer-review process. That point is particularly relevant for Buchleitner, who sees the expansion of the editorial board as helping to improve the journal’s handling of submissions to ensure that authors feel their work is being evaluated fairly and by knowledgeable and engaged individuals. “Increasing the editorial board was quite an important concept in terms of helping the journal expand,” adds Buchleitner. “What is important to me is that scientists who contact the journal feel that they are talking to people and not to artificial intelligence substitutes.”

While citation metrics such as impact factors are often debated in terms of their scientific value, they remain essential for a journal’s visibility and reputation. In the competitive landscape of scientific publishing, they can set a journal apart from its competitors. With that in mind, NJP, which has an impact factor of 2.8, is also focusing on improving its citation indices to compete with top-tier journals.

Yet that doesn’t only just include the impact factor but other metrics that ensure efficient and constructive handling of submissions that will encourage researchers to publish with the journal again. To set it apart from competitors, the time taken to first decision before peer review, for example, is only six days while the journal has a median of 50 days to first decision after peer review.

Society benefits

While NJP pioneered the open-access model of scientific publishing, that position is no longer unique given the huge increase in open-access journals over the past decade. Yet the publishing model continues to be an important aspect of the journal’s identity to ensure that the research it publishes is freely available to all. Another crucial factor to attract authors and set it apart from commercial entities is that NJP is published by learned societies – the IOP and DPG.

NJP has often been thought of as a “European journal”. Indeed, NJP’s role is significant in the context of the UK leaving the European Union, in that it serves as a bridge between the UK and mainland European research communities. “That’s one of the reasons why I like the journal,” says Buchleitner, who adds that with a wider scope NJP will not only publish the best research from around the world but also strengthen its identity as a leading European journal.

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So-called “forever chemicals”, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are widely used in consumer, commercial and industrial products, and have subsequently made their way into humans, animals, water, air and soil. Despite this ubiquity, there are still many unknowns regarding the potential human health and environmental risks that PFAS pose.

Join us for an in-depth exploration of PFAS with four leading experts who will shed light on the scientific advances and future challenges in this rapidly evolving research area.

Our panel will guide you through a discussion of PFAS classification and sources, the journey of PFAS through ecosystems, strategies for PFAS risk mitigation and remediation, and advances in the latest biotechnological innovations to address their effects.

Sponsored by Sustainability Science and Technology, a new journal from IOP Publishing that provides a platform for researchers, policymakers, and industry professionals to publish their research on current and emerging sustainability challenges and solutions.

Jonas Baltrusaitis, inaugural editor-in-chief of Sustainability Science and Technology, has co-authored more than 300 research publications on innovative materials. His work includes nutrient recovery from waste, their formulation and delivery, and renewable energy-assisted catalysis for energy carrier and commodity chemical synthesis and transformations.

Linda S Lee is a distinguished professor at Purdue University with joint appointments in the Colleges of Agriculture (COA) and Engineering, program head of the Ecological Sciences & Engineering Interdisciplinary Graduate Program and COA assistant dean of graduate education and research. She joined Purdue in 1993 with degrees in chemistry (BS), environmental engineering (MS) and soil chemistry/contaminant hydrology (PhD) from the University of Florida. Her research includes chemical fate, analytical tools, waste reuse, bioaccumulation, and contaminant remediation and management strategies with PFAS challenges driving much of her research for the last two decades. Her research is supported by a diverse funding portfolio. She has published more than 150 papers with most in top-tier environmental journals.

Clinton Williams is the research leader of Plant and Irrigation and Water Quality Research units at US Arid Land Agricultural Research Center. He has been actively engaged in environmental research focusing on water quality and quantity for more than 20 years. Clinton looks for ways to increase water supplies through the safe use of reclaimed waters. His current research is related to the environmental and human health impacts of biologically active contaminants (e.g. PFAS, pharmaceuticals, hormones and trace organics) found in reclaimed municipal wastewater and the associated impacts on soil, biota, and natural waters in contact with wastewater. His research is also looking for ways to characterize the environmental loading patterns of these compounds while finding low-cost treatment alternatives to reduce their environmental concentration using byproducts capable of removing the compounds from water supplies.

Sara Lupton has been a research chemist with the Food Animal Metabolism Research Unit at the Edward T Schafer Agricultural Research Center in Fargo, ND within the USDA-Agricultural Research Service since 2010. Sara’s background is in environmental analytical chemistry. She is the ARS lead scientist for the USDA’s Dioxin Survey and other research includes the fate of animal drugs and environmental contaminants in food animals and investigation of environmental contaminant sources (feed, water, housing, etc.) that contribute to chemical residue levels in food animals. Sara has conducted research on bioavailability, accumulation, distribution, excretion, and remediation of PFAS compounds in food animals for more than 10 years.

Jude Maul received a master’s degree in plant biochemistry from University of Kentucky and a PhD in horticulture and biogeochemistry from Cornell University in 2008. Since then he has been with the USDA-ARS as a research ecologist in the Sustainable Agriculture System Laboratory. Jude’s research focuses on molecular ecology at the plant/soil/water interface in the context of plant health, nutrient acquisition and productivity. Taking a systems approach to agroecosystem research, Jude leads the USDA-ARS-LTAR Soils Working group which is creating an national soils data repository which coincides with his research results contributing to national soil health management recommendations.

About this journal

Sustainability Science and Technology is an interdisciplinary, open access journal dedicated to advances in science, technology, and engineering that can contribute to a more sustainable planet. It focuses on breakthroughs in all science and engineering disciplines that address one or more of the three sustainability pillars: environmental, social and/or economic.
Editor-in-chief: Jonas Baltrusaitis, Lehigh University, USA

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SPIE Photonics West, the world’s largest photonics technologies event, takes place in San Francisco, California, from 25 to 30 January. Showcasing cutting-edge research in lasers, biomedical optics, biophotonics, quantum technologies, optoelectronics and more, Photonics West features leaders in the field discussing the industry’s challenges and breakthroughs, and sharing their research and visions of the future.

As well as 100 technical conferences with over 5000 presentations, the event brings together several world-class exhibitions, kicking off on 25 January with the BiOS Expo, the world’s largest biomedical optics and biophotonics exhibition.

The main Photonics West Exhibition starts on 28 January. Hosting more than 1200 companies, the event highlights the latest developments in laser technologies, optoelectronics, photonic components, materials and devices, and system support. The newest and fastest growing expo, Quantum West, showcases photonics as an enabling technology for a quantum future. Finally, the co-located AR | VR | MR exhibition features the latest extended reality hardware and systems. Here are some of the innovative products on show at this year’s event.

HydraHarp 500: a new era in time-correlated single-photon counting

Photonics West sees PicoQuant introduce its newest generation of event timer and time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) unit – the HydraHarp 500. Setting a new standard in speed, precision and flexibility, the TCSPC unit is freely scalable with up to 16 independent channels and a common sync channel, which can also serve as an additional detection channel if no sync is required.

At the core of the HydraHarp 500 is its outstanding timing precision and accuracy, enabling precise photon timing measurements at exceptionally high data rates, even in demanding applications.

In addition to the scalable channel configuration, the HydraHarp 500 offers flexible trigger options to support a wide range of detectors, from single-photon avalanche diodes to superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Seamless integration is ensured through versatile interfaces such as USB 3.0 or an external FPGA interface for data transfer, while White Rabbit synchronization allows precise cross-device coordination for distributed setups.

The HydraHarp 500 is engineered for high-throughput applications, making it ideal for rapid, large-volume data acquisition. It offers 16+1 fully independent channels for true simultaneous multi-channel data recording and efficient data transfer via USB or the dedicated FPGA interface. Additionally, the HydraHarp 500 boasts industry-leading, extremely low dead-time per channel and no dead-time across channels, ensuring comprehensive datasets for precise statistical analysis.

Step into the future of photonics and quantum research with the HydraHarp 500. Whether it’s achieving precise photon correlation measurements, ensuring reproducible results or integrating advanced setups, the HydraHarp 500 redefines what’s possible – offering
precision, flexibility and efficiency combined with reliability and seamless integration to
achieve breakthrough results.

For more information, visit www.picoquant.com or contact us at info@picoquant.com.

• Meet PicoQuant at BiOS booth #8511 and Photonics West booth #3511.

SmarAct: shaping the future of precision

SmarAct is set to make waves at the upcoming SPIE Photonics West, the world’s leading exhibition for photonics, biomedical optics and laser technologies, and the parallel BiOS trade fair. SmarAct will showcase a portfolio of cutting-edge solutions designed to redefine precision and performance across a wide range of applications.

At Photonics West, SmarAct will unveil its latest innovations, as well as its well-established and appreciated iris diaphragms and optomechanical systems. All of the highlighted technologies exemplify SmarAct’s commitment to enabling superior control in optical setups, a critical requirement for research and industrial environments.

Attendees can also experience the unparalleled capabilities of electromagnetic positioners and SmarPod systems. With their hexapod-like design, these systems offer nanometre-scale precision and flexibility, making them indispensable tools for complex alignment tasks in photonics and beyond.

One major highlight is SmarAct’s debut of a 3D pick-and-place system designed for handling optical fibres. This state-of-the-art solution integrates precision and flexibility, offering a glimpse into the future of fibre alignment and assembly. Complementing this is a sophisticated gantry system for microassembly of optical components. Designed to handle large travel ranges with remarkable accuracy, this system meets the growing demand for precision in the assembly of intricate optical technologies. It combines the best of SmarAct’s drive technologies, such as fast (up to 1 m/s) and durable electromagnetic positioners and scanner stages based on piezo-driven mechanical flexures with maximum scanning speed and minimum scanning error.

Simultaneously, at the BiOS trade fair SmarAct will spotlight its new electromagnetic microscopy stage, a breakthrough specifically tailored for life sciences applications. This advanced stage delivers exceptional stability and adaptability, enabling researchers to push the boundaries of imaging and experimental precision. This innovation underscores SmarAct’s dedication to addressing the unique challenges faced by the biomedical and life sciences sectors, as well as bioprinting and tissue engineering companies.

Throughout the event, SmarAct’s experts will demonstrate these solutions in action, offering visitors an interactive and hands-on understanding of how these technologies can meet their specific needs. Visit SmarAct’s booths to engage with experts and discover how SmarAct solutions can empower your projects.

Whether you’re advancing research in semiconductors, developing next-generation photonic devices or pioneering breakthroughs in life sciences, SmarAct’s solutions are tailored to help you achieve your goals with unmatched precision and reliability.

• For more information, visit SmarAct at Photonics West booth #3439, BiOS booth #8439 or explore SmarAct’s application examples here.

Precision positioning systems enable diverse applications 

For 25 years Mad City Labs has provided precision instrumentation for research and industry – including nanopositioning systems, micropositioners, microscope stages and platforms, single-molecule microscopes, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) and customized solutions.

The company’s newest micropositioning system – the MMP-UHV50 – is a modular, linear micropositioner designed for ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) environments. Constructed entirely from UHV-compatible materials and carefully designed to eliminate sources of virtual leaks, the MMP-UHV50 offers 50 mm travel range with 190 nm step size and a maximum vertical payload of 2 kg.

Uniquely, the MMP-UHV50 incorporates a zero-power feature when not in motion, to minimize heating and drift. Safety features include limit switches and overheat protection – critical features when operating in vacuum environments. The system includes the Micro-Drive-UHV digital electronic controller, supplied with LabVIEW-based software and compatible with user-written software via the supplied DLL file (for example, Python, Matlab or C++).

Other products from Mad City Labs include piezo nanopositioners featuring the company’s proprietary PicoQ sensors, which provide ultralow noise and excellent stability to yield sub-nanometre resolution. These high-performance sensors enable motion control down to the single picometre level.

For scanning probe microscopy, Mad City Labs’s nanopositioning systems provide true decoupled motion with virtually undetectable out-of-plane movement, while their precision and stability yields high positioning performance and control. The company offers both an optical deflection AFM – the MadAFM, a multimodal sample scanning AFM in a compact, tabletop design and designed for simple installation – plus resonant probe AFM models.

The resonant probe products include the company’s AFM controllers, MadPLL and QS-PLL, which enable users to build their own flexibly configured AFMs using Mad City Labs’ micro- and nanopositioners.  All AFM instruments are ideal for material characterization, but the resonant probe AFMs are uniquely suitable for quantum sensing and nano-magnetometry applications.

Mad City Labs also offers standalone micropositioning products, including optical microscope stages, compact positioners for photonics and the Mad-Deck XYZ stage platform, all of which employ proprietary intelligent control to optimize stability and precision. They are also compatible with the high-resolution nanopositioning systems, enabling motion control across micro-to-picometre length scales.

Finally, for high-end microscopy applications, the RM21 single-molecule microscope, featuring the unique MicroMirror TIRF system, offers multi-colour total internal-reflection fluorescence microscopy with an excellent signal-to-noise ratio and efficient data collection, along with an array of options to support multiple single-molecule techniques.

Our product portfolio, coupled with our expertise in custom design and manufacturing, ensures that we are able to provide solutions for nanoscale motion for diverse applications such as astronomy, photonics, metrology and quantum sensing.

• Learn more at BiOS booth #8525 and Photonics West booth #3525.

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The Electrochemical Society (ECS) is an international non-profit scholarly organization that promotes research, education and technological innovation in electrochemistry, solid-state science and related fields.

Founded in 1902, the ECS brings together scientists and engineers to share knowledge and advance electrochemical technologies.

As part of that mission, the society publishes several journals including the flagship Journal of the Electrochemical Society (JES), which is over 120 years old and covers a wide range of topics in electrochemical science and engineering.

Someone who has seen their involvement with the ECS and ECS journals increase over their career is chemist Trisha Andrew from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She directs the wearable electronics lab, a multi-disciplinary research team that produces garment-integrated technologies using reactive vapor deposition.

Her involvement with the ECS began when she was invited by the editor-in-chief of ECS Sensors Plus to act as a referee for the journal. Andrew found the depth and practical application of the papers she reviewed interesting and of high quality. This resulted in her submitting her own work to ECS journals and she later became an associate editor for both ECS Sensors Plus and JES.

Professional Opportunities

Physical chemist Weiran Zheng from the Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology China, meanwhile, says that due to the reputation of ECS journals, they have been his “go-to” place to publish since graduate school.

One of his papers entitled “Python for electrochemistry: a free an all-in-one toolset” (ECS Adv. 2 040502) has been downloaded over 8000 times and is currently the most-read ECS Advances article. This led to an invitation to deliver an ECS webinar — Introducing Python for Electrochemistry Research. “I never expected such an impact when the paper was accepted, and none of this would be possible without the platform offered by ECS journals,” adds Zheng.

Publishing in ECS journals has helped Zheng’s career advance through new connections and becoming more involved with ECS activities. This has not only boosted his research but also professional network and given these benefits, Zheng plans to continue to publish his latest findings in ECS journals.

Highly cited papers

Battery researcher Thierry Brousse from Nantes University in France, came to electrochemistry later on in his career having first carried out a PhD in high-temperature superconducting thin films at the University of Caen Normandy.

When he began working in the field he collaborated with the chemist Donald Schleich from Polytech Nantes, who was an ECS member. It was then that he began to read the JES finding it a prestigious platform for his research in supercapacitors and microdevices for energy storage. “Most of the inspiring scientific papers I was reading at that time were from JES,” notes Brousse. “Naturally, my first papers were then submitted to this journal.”

Brousse says that publishing in ECS journals has provided him with new collaborations as well as invitations to speak at major conferences. He emphasizes the importance of innovative work and the positive impact of publishing in ECS journals where some of his most cited work has been published.

Brousse, who is an associate editor for JES, adds that he particularly values how publishing with ECS journals fosters a quick integration into specific research communities. This, he says, has been instrumental in advancing his career.

Long-standing relationships

Robert Savinell’s relationship with the ECS and ECS journals began during his PhD research in electrochemistry, which he carried out at the University of Pittsburgh. Now at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, his research focusses on developing a flow battery for low-cost long duration energy storage primarily using iron and water. It is designed to improve the efficiency of the power grid and accelerate the addition of solar and wind power supplies.

Savinell also leads a Department of Energy funded Emerging Frontier Research Center on Breakthrough Electrolytes for Energy Storage. This Center focuses on fundamental research on nano to meso-scale structured electrolytes for energy storage.

ECS journals have been a cornerstone of his professional career, providing a platform for his research and fostering valuable professional connections. “Some of my research published in JES many years ago are still cited today,” says Savinell.

Savinell’s contributions to the ECS community have been recognized through various roles, including being elected a fellow of the ECS and he has previously served as chair of the ECS’s electrolytic and electrochemical engineering division. He was editor-in-chief of JES for the past decade and most recently was elected third vice president of the ECS.

Savinell says that the connections he has made through ECS have been significant, ranging from funding programme managers to personal friends. “My whole professional career has been focused around ECS,” he says, adding that he aims to continue to publish in ECS journals and hopes that his work will inspire solutions to some of society’s biggest problems.

Personal touch

For many researchers in the field, publishing in ECS journals has brought with it several benefits. That includes the high level of engagement and the personal touch within the ECS community and also the promotional support ECS provides for published work.

The ECS journals’ broad portfolio also ensure that researcher’s work reaches the right audience, and such a visibility and engagement is a significant factor when it comes to advancing the careers of scientists. “The difference between ECS journals is the amount of engagement, views and reception that you receive,” says Andrew. “That’s what I found to be the most unique”.

The post How publishing in Electrochemical Society journals fosters a sense of community appeared first on Physics World.

This webinar will detail recent efforts in proton exchange membrane-based low temperature electrolysis degradation, focused on losses due to simulated start-stop operation and anode catalyst layer redox transitions. Ex situ testing indicated that repeated redox cycling accelerates catalyst dissolution, due to near-surface reduction and the higher dissolution kinetics of metals when cycling to high potentials. Similar results occurred in situ, where a large decrease in cell kinetics was found, along with iridium migrating from the anode catalyst layer into the membrane. Additional processes were observed, however, and included changes in catalyst oxidation, the formation of thinner and denser catalyst layers, and platinum migration from the transport layer coating. Complicating factors, including the loss of water flow and temperature control were evaluated, where a higher rate of interfacial tearing and delamination were found. Current efforts are focused on bridging these studies into a more relevant field-test and include evaluating the possible differences in catalyst reduction through an electrochemical process versus hydrogen exposure, either direct or through crossover. These studies seek to identify degradation mechanisms and voltage loss acceleration, and to demonstrate the impact of operational stops on electrolyzer lifetime.

An interactive Q&A session follows the presentation.

Shaun Alia has worked in several areas related to electrochemical energy conversion and storage, including proton and anion exchange membrane-based electrolyzers and fuel cells, direct methanol fuel cells, capacitors, and batteries. His current research involves understanding electrochemical and degradation processes, component development, and materials integration and optimization. Within HydroGEN, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Materials network, Alia has been involved in low temperature electrolysis through NREL capabilities in materials development and ex and in situ characterization. He is further active within in situ durability, diagnostics, and accelerated stress test development for H2@Scale and H2NEW.

The post Start-stop operation and the degradation impact in electrolysis appeared first on Physics World.

Whether creating a contaminant-free environment for depositing material or minimizing unwanted collisions in spectrometers and accelerators, vacuum environments are a crucial element of many scientific endeavours. Creating and maintaining very low pressures requires a holistic approach to system design that includes material selection, preparation, and optimization of the vacuum chamber and connection volumes. Measurement strategies also need to be considered across the full range of vacuum to ensure consistent performance and deliver the expected outcomes from the experiment or process.

Developing a vacuum system that achieves the optimal low-pressure conditions for each application, while also controlling the cost and footprint of the system, is a complex balancing act that benefits from specialized expertise in vacuum science and engineering. A committed technology partner with extensive experience of working with customers to design vacuum systems, including those for physics research, can help to define the optimum technologies that will produce the best solution for each application.

Over many years, the technology experts at Agilent have assisted countless customers with configuring and enhancing their vacuum processes. “Our best successes come from collaborations where we take the time to understand the customer’s needs, offer them guidance, and work together to create innovative solutions,” comments John Screech, senior applications engineer at Agilent. “We strive to be a trusted partner rather than just a commercial vendor, ensuring our customers not only have the right tools for their needs, but also the information they need to achieve their goals.”

In his role Screech works with customers from the initial design phase all the way through to installation and troubleshooting. “Many of our customers know they need vacuum, but they don’t have the time or resources to really understand the individual components and how they should be put together,” he says. “We are available to provide full support to help customers create a complete system that performs reliably and meets the requirements of their application.”

In one instance, Screech was able to assist a customer who had been using an older technology to create an ultrahigh vacuum environment. “Their system was able to produce the vacuum they needed, but it was unreliable and difficult to operate,” he remembers. By identifying the problem and supporting the migration to a modern, simpler technology, Screech helped his customer to achieve the required vacuum conditions improve uptime and increase throughput.

Agilent collaborates with various systems integrators to create custom vacuum solutions for scientific instruments and processes. Such customized designs must be compact enough to be integrated within the system, while also delivering the required vacuum performance at a cost-effective price point. “Customers trust us to find a practical and reliable solution, and realize that we will be a committed partner over the long term,” says Screech.

Expert partnership yields success

The company also partners with leading space agencies and particle physics laboratories to create customized vacuum solutions for the most demanding applications. For many years, Agilent has supplied high-performance vacuum pumps to CERN, which created the world’s largest vacuum system to prevent unwanted collisions between accelerated particles and residual gas molecules in the Large Hadron Collider.

When engineering a vacuum solution that meets the exact specifications of the facility, one key consideration is the physical footprint of the equipment. Another is ensuring that the required pumping performance is achieved without introducing any unwanted effects – such as stray magnetic fields – into the highly controlled environment. Agilent vacuum experts have the experience and knowledge to engineer innovative solutions that meet such a complex set of criteria. “These large organizations already have highly skilled vacuum engineers who understand the unique parameters of their system, but even they can benefit from our expertise to transform their requirements into a workable solution,” says Screech.

Agilent also shares its knowledge and experience through various educational opportunities in vacuum technologies, including online webinars and dedicated training courses. The practical aspects of vacuum can be challenging to learn online, so in-person classes emphasize a hands-on approach that allows participants to assemble and characterize rough- and high-vacuum systems. “In our live sessions everyone has the opportunity to bolt a system together, test which configuration will pump down faster, and gain insights into leak detection,” says Screech. “We have students from industry and academia in the classes, and they are always able to share tips and techniques with one another.” Additionally, the company maintains a vacuum community as an online resource, where questions can be posed to experts, and collaboration among users is encouraged.

Agilent recognizes that vacuum is an enabler for scientific research and that creating the ideal vacuum system can be challenging. “Customers can trust Agilent as a technology partner,” says Screech. “We can share our experience and help them create the optimal vacuum system for their needs.”

• A new webinar from Agilent, Vacuum for Physics Research, can now be viewed on demand via physicsworld.com. Further resources are available through the Agilent vacuum webinar library, or contact vacuum_training@agilent.com for more information about education and training opportunities.
• You can learn more about vacuum and leak detection technologies from Agilent through the company’s website. Alternatively, visit the partnership webpage to chat with an expert, find training, and explore the benefits of partnering with Agilent.

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Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells are ubiquitous in electric vehicles and stationary energy storage because they are cheap and have a long lifetime. This webinar will show our studies comparing 240 mAh LFP/graphite pouch cells undergoing charge-discharge cycles over 5 state of charge (SOC) windows (0%–25%, 0%–60%, 0%–80%, 0%–100%, and 75%–100%). To accelerate the degradation, elevated temperatures of 40°C and 55°C were used. In more realistic operating temperatures, it is expected that LFP cells will perform better with longer lifetimes. In this study, we found that cycling LFP cells across a lower average SOC result in less capacity fade than cycling across a higher average SOC, regardless of depth of discharge. The primary capacity fade mechanism is lithium inventory loss due to: lithiated graphite reactivity with electrolyte, which increases incrementally with SOC, and lithium alkoxide species causing iron dissolution and deposition on the negative electrode at high SOC which further accelerates lithium inventory loss. Our results show that even low voltage LFP systems (3.65 V) have a trade-off between average SOC and lifetime. Operating LFP cells at lower average SOC could extend their lifetime substantially in both EV and grid storage applications.

Eniko Zsoldos is a 5th year PhD candidate in chemistry at Dalhousie University in the Jeff Dahn research group. Her current research focuses on understanding degradation mechanisms in a variety of lithium-ion cell chemistries (NMC, LFP, LMO) using techniques such as isothermal microcalorimetry and electrolyte analysis. Eniko received her undergraduate degree in nanotechnology engineering from the University of Waterloo. During her undergrad, she was a member of the Waterloo Formula Electric team, building an electric race car for FSAE student competitions. She has completed internships at Sila Nanotechnologies working on silicon-based anodes for batteries, and at Tesla working on dry electrode processing in Fremont, CA.

The post How the operating window of LFP/Graphite cells affects their lifetime appeared first on Physics World.

A building may be little more than bricks and mortar, but behind the façade it can bring people together and catalyse change. That was the vision for the main facility of the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), located on the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire, which is designed to foster collaboration and accelerate innovation across all parts of the UK’s quantum ecosystem.

At the official opening of the building, held at the end of October 2024, the NQCC team showed how that original vision had been turned into reality. In the new experimental labs on the ground floor, NQCC scientists who were previously working as individual teams in borrowed facilities around the Harwell site are now working in an environment where they can swap notes with colleagues working on other hardware platforms.

“It is always useful to have other scientists around to share ideas and solve specific problems,” said Klara Theophilo, an atomic physicist who is setting up trapped-ion systems based on chips originally developed at the University of Oxford and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). “Trapped-ion systems share some of the same challenges as hardware platforms based on neutral atoms, while the cryogenic engineering we need is also being used for systems based on superconducting qubits.”

Theophilo and her scientific colleagues are benefiting from state-of-the-art experimental facilities purpose-designed for building and testing quantum computers. “This lab has the best environmental control I have ever worked in,” she said. “To achieve high gate fidelities we need careful control of both the temperature and the humidity to ensure that our lasers can manipulate the qubits with high precision, and in our previous lab space there was a constant need to realign and recalibrate the lasers.”

Joining the NQCC technical teams will be scientists and engineers from commercial companies who are building their own systems for quantum computing. In the coming months, several firms are due to install prototype hardware platforms commissioned by the NQCC as part of its programme to establish seven experimental testbeds based on different qubit modalities.

Others will be hosted at the Innovation Hub, the NQCC’s other facility on the Harwell Campus, while quantum networking company NuQuantum is also preparing to establish a team within the main building for a three-year co-development project with the NQCC. The aim of this programme, called Project IDRA, will be to build a distributed quantum computing system that will connect together multiple hardware nodes by entangling the qubits in different quantum processors.

 facility like the NQCC can act like an anchor for businesses to build around, creating a cluster of companies that form a supply chain for each other

Mark Thomson, executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

For the NQCC and its backers, the longer term hope is that bringing these hardware companies into the national lab will catalyse the formation of a quantum cluster in and around the Harwell Campus.

“We have a unique ability on this site to connect academia and national infrastructure with start-up businesses and large enterprise,” said Mark Thomson, currently the executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and soon to be the new director general of CERN. “A facility like the NQCC can act like an anchor for businesses to build around, creating a cluster of companies that form a supply chain for each other. We have already seen that in the space sector, and I genuinely believe that we will now see the same clustering effect for quantum technologies.”

Indeed, many of the hardware providers who are installing their prototype systems within the NQCC are eager to find new ways to work with the national lab and its growing network of academic and commercial partners. “Establishing a presence in the NQCC is a great way for us to become more connected with the UK’s wider quantum ecosystem,” said Alice Voaden, project manager for Rigetti, one of the testbed providers. “It puts us in a better position to identify future opportunities for collaboration, which could help us to explore how emerging applications and software strategies can work with our technology.”

Beyond the technical work, the new facility brings together the NQCC’s growing team of technical and innovation specialists under the same roof for the first time. Previously distributed among temporary office spaces across the Harwell Campus, around 80 people working across a diverse range of activities now have the chance to make new connections and forge a collective identity that will help to establish the NQCC as a focal point for quantum computing in the UK and beyond.

Indeed, since the NQCC was established in 2020 it has put an increasing emphasis on building a community of hardware providers, software developers and end users who can work together to explore the value of quantum computing for the benefit of society and the economy.

“The early vision for the NQCC was to address the issue of scaling in quantum computing, and originally we were primarily focused on technology development,” commented NQCC director Michael Cuthbert. “But increasingly we’ve been turning our attention to scaling the user community for quantum computing, and today is an opportunity for us to highlight our activities across the breadth of our programme.”

Those efforts include providing easy access to quantum computing resources, offering learning opportunities to boost the ranks of scientists and engineers with an understanding of quantum computers, and working directly with organizations in the public and private sectors to develop use cases where quantum computing can make a meaningful impact.

In one example highlighted at the inauguration, applications engineers from the NQCC are working with software company Unisys and the University of Newcastle to explore how today’s quantum computers could be used to optimize the loading of cargo onto aircraft, which can cut fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions.

“What happens here will create jobs and businesses, and it will benefit people across the UK and beyond,” said Science Minister Lord Patrick Vallance, who officially opened the building. “You have created something that will bring academics and people from industry together to harness the power of quantum computing to solve problems that really matter.”

Another element of the NQCC’s remit is to provide clear, trusted and impartial guidance to government, businesses and the  ublic. It is already working with NPL and other government and industry bodies on standards development, with the NQCC spearheading the global debate around responsible and ethical quantum computing. “Gaining public trust is vital to drive user adoption,” said Cuthbert. “The NQCC is in a unique position to provide thought leadership on ethical considerations, which will ultimately benefit the whole community.”

While the inauguration of the UK’s newest national lab was focused on the prospects for quantum computing, there were also reminders that the NQCC is a direct result of the country’s established strength in quantum science and technology. Following decades of basic research across many contributing disciplines, the National Quantum Technologies Programme, which has seen more than £1bn of investment since 2014, has been created a collaborative culture in which academics work in tandem with start-up companies to translate scientific insights into innovative technologies.

“We know that quantum computing will be a long-haul journey that requires some patience, but the NQCC is already showing what can be achieved through collaboration and co-location,” said Peter Knight, the architect of the NQTP and the instigator behind the NQCC. “Bringing companies and academics into the facility will enable dialogue, drive future collaboration, and accelerate progress towards our mission of delivering quantum computing at scale.”

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An engaging webinar where we explore how RadCalc supports advanced brachytherapy quality assurance, enabling accurate and efficient dose calculations. Brachytherapy plays a critical role in cancer treatment, with modalities like HDR, LDR, and permanent seed implants requiring precise dose verification to ensure optimal patient outcomes.

The increasing complexity of modern brachytherapy plans has heightened the demand for streamlined QA processes. Traditional methods, while effective, often involve time-consuming experimental workflows. With RadCalc’s 3D dose calculation system based on the TG-43 protocol, users can achieve fast and reliable QA, supported by seamless integration with treatment planning systems and automation through RadCalcAIR.

The webinar will showcase the implementation of independent RadCalc QA.

Don’t miss the opportunity to listen to two RadCalc clinical users!

A Q&A session follows the presentation.

Michal Poltorak, MSc, is the head of the department of Medical Physics at the National Institute of Medicine, Ministry of the Interior and Administration, in Warsaw, Poland. With expertise in medical physics, he oversees research and clinical applications in radiation therapy and patient safety. His professional focus lies in integrating innovative technologies.

Oskar Sobotka, MSc.Eng, is a medical physicist at the Radiotherapy Center in Gorzów Wielkopolski, specializing in treatment planning and dosimetry. With a Master’s degree from Adam Mickiewicz University and experience in nuclear medicine and radiotherapy, he ensures precision and safety in patient care.

Lucy Wolfsberger, MS, LAP, is an application specialist for RadCalc at LifeLine Software Inc., a part of the LAP Group. She is dedicated to enhancing safety and accuracy in radiotherapy by supporting clinicians with a patient-centric, independent quality assurance platform. Lucy combines her expertise in medical physics and clinical workflows to help healthcare providers achieve efficient, reliable, and comprehensive QA.

Carlos Bohorquez, MS, DABR, is the product manager for RadCalc at LifeLine Software Inc., a part of the LAP Group. An experienced board-certified clinical physicist with a proven history of working in the clinic and medical device industry, Carlos’ passion for clinical quality assurance is demonstrated in the research and development of RadCalc into the future.

The post Elevating brachytherapy QA with RadCalc appeared first on Physics World.

Busy radiation therapy clinics need smart solutions that streamline processes while also enhancing the quality of patient care. That’s the premise behind ChartCheck, a tool developed by Radformation to facilitate the weekly checks that medical physicists perform for each patient who is undergoing a course of radiotherapy. By introducing automation into what is often a manual and repetitive process, ChartCheck can save time and effort while also enabling medical physicists to identify and investigate potential risks as the treatment progresses.

“To ensure that a patient is receiving the proper treatment a qualified medical physicist must check a patient’s chart after every five fractions of radiation has been delivered,” explains Ryan Manger, lead medical physicist at the Encinitas Treatment Center, one of four clinics operated by UC San Diego in the US. “The current best practice is to check 36 separate items for each patient, which can take a lot of time when each physicist needs to verify 30 or 40 charts every week.”

Before introducing ChartCheck into the workflow at UC San Diego, Manger says that around 70% of the checks had to be done manually. “The weekly checks are really important for patient safety, but they become a big time sink when each task takes five or ten minutes,” he says. “It’s easy to get fatigued when you’re looking at the same things over and over again, and we have found that introducing automation into the process can have a positive impact on everything else we do in the clinic.”

ChartCheck monitors the progress of ongoing treatments by automatically performing a comprehensive suite of clinical checks, raising an alert if any issue is detected. As an example, after each treatment the tool verifies that the delivered dose matches the parameters defined in the clinical plan, while it also monitors real-time changes such as any movement of the couch during treatment. It also collates together all the necessary safety documentation, allows comments or notes to be added, and highlights any scheduling changes when a patient decides to take a treatment break, for instance, or the physician adds a boost to the clinical plan.

As well as consolidating all the information on a single platform, ChartCheck allows physicists to analyse the treatment data to identify and understand any underlying issues that might affect patient safety. “It has given us a lot more vision of what’s happening across all our treatments, which is typically around 300 per week,” says Manger. “Within just three months it has illuminated areas that we were unaware of before, but that might have carried some risk.”

What’s more, the physicists at UC San Diego have found that automating many of the routine tasks has enabled them to focus their attention where it is needed most. “We have implemented the tool as a first-pass filter to flag any charts that might need further attention, which is typically around 10–15% of the total,” says Manger. “We can then use our expertise to investigate those charts in more detail and to understand what the risk factors might be. The result is that we do a better check where it’s needed, rather than just looking at the same things over and over.”

Jennifer Scharff, lead physicist at the John Stoddard Cancer Center in Des Moines, Iowa, also values the extra insights that ChartCheck offers. One major advantage, she says, is how easy it is to check whether the couch might have moved between treatment fields. “It’s not ideal when the couch moves, but sometimes it happens if a patient coughs or sneezes during the treatment and the therapist needs to adjust the position slightly when they get back into their breath hold,” she says. “In ChartCheck it’s really easy to see those positional shifts on a daily basis, and to identify any trends or issues that we might need to address.”

ChartCheck offers full integration with ARIA, the oncology information system from Varian, making it easy to implement and operate within existing clinical workflows. Although ARIA already offers a tool for treatment verification, Scharff says that ChartCheck offers a more comprehensive and efficient solution. “It checks more than ARIA does, and it’s much faster and more efficient to do a weekly physics check,” she says. “As an example, it’s really easy to see the journal notes that our therapists make when something isn’t quite right, and it helps us to identify patients who need a final chart check when they want to pause or stop their treatment.”

The automated tool also guarantees consistency between the chart checks undertaken by different physicists, with Scharff finding the standardized approach particularly useful when locums are brought into the team. “It’s easy for them to see all the information we can see, we can be sure that they are making the same checks as we do, and the same documents are always sent for approval,” she says. “The system makes it really easy to catch things, and it calls out the same thing for everyone.”

With the medical physicists at UC San Diego working across four different treatment centres, Manger has also been impressed by the ability of ChartCheck to improve consistency between physicists working in different locations. “The human factor always introduces some variations, even between physicists who are fully trained,” he says. “Minimizing the impact of those variations has been a huge benefit that I hadn’t considered when we first decided to introduce the software, but it has allowed us to ensure that all the correct policies and procedures are being followed across all of our treatment centres.”

Overall, the experience of physicists like Manger and Scharff is that ChartCheck can streamline processes while also providing them with the reassurance that their patients are always being treated correctly and safely. “It has had a huge positive impact for us,” says Scharff. “It saves a lot of time and gives us more confidence that everything is being done as it should be.”

• To find out more, visit the Radformation website to watch a recent ChartCheck webinar.

The post Automated checks build confidence in treatment verification appeared first on Physics World.

Dr Daniel Venencia is the chief of the medical physics department at Instituto Zunino – Fundación Marie Curie in Cordoba, Argentina. He holds a BSc in physics and a PhD from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), Daniel has completed postgraduate studies in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine. With extensive experience in the field, Daniel has directed more than 20 MSc and BSc theses and three doctoral theses. He has delivered more than 400 presentations at national and international congresses. He has published in prestigious journals, including the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics and the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics. His work continues to make significant contributions to the advancement of medical physics.

Carlos Bohorquez, MS, DABR, is the product manager for RadCalc at LifeLine Software Inc., a part of the LAP Group. An experienced board-certified clinical physicist with a proven history of working in the clinic and medical device industry, Carlos’ passion for clinical quality assurance is demonstrated in the research and development of RadCalc into the future.

The post Patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) based on independent 3D dose calculation appeared first on Physics World.

Electronic chips are made using photolithography, which involves shining ultraviolet light through a patterned mask and onto a semiconductor wafer. The light activates a photoresist on the surface, which allows the etching of a pattern on the wafer. Through successive iterations of photolithography and the deposition of metals, devices with features as small as a few dozen nanometres are created.

Crucial to this complex manufacturing process is aligning the wafer with successive masks. This must be done in a rapid and repeatable manner, while maintaining  nanometre precision throughout the manufacturing process. That’s where Queensgate – part of precision optical and mechanical instrumentation manufacturer Prior Scientific – comes into the picture.

For 45 years, UK-based Queensgate has led the way in the development of nanopositioning technologies. The firm spun out of Imperial College London in 1979 as a supplier of precision instrumentation for astronomy. Its global reputation was sealed when NASA chose Queensgate technology for use on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. The company has worked for over two decades with the hard-disk drive-maker Seagate to develop technologies for the rapid inspection of read/write heads during manufacture.  Queensgate is also involved in a longstanding collaboration with the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to develop nanopositioning technologies that are being used to define international standards of measurement.

Move to larger wafers

The semiconductor industry is in the process of moving from 200 mm to 300 mm wafers – which doubles the number of chips that can be produced from a wafer. Processing the larger and heavier wafers requires a new generation of equipment that can position wafers at nanometre precision.

Queensgate already works with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make optical wafer-inspection systems that are used to identify defects during the processing of 300 mm wafers. Now the company has set its sights on wafer alignment systems. The move to 300 mm wafers offers the company an opportunity to contribute to the development the next-generation alignment systems – says Queensgate product manager Craig Goodman.

“The wafers are getting bigger, which puts a bigger strain on the positioning requirements and we’re here to help solve problems that that’s causing,” explains Goodman. “We are getting lots of inquiries from OEMs about how our technology can be used in the precision positioning of wafers used to produce next-generation high-performance semiconductor devices”.

The move to 300 mm means that fabs need to align wafers that are both larger in area and much heavier. What is more, a much heavier chuck is required to hold a 300 mm wafer during production. This leads to conflicting requirements for a positioning system. It must be accurate over shorter distances as feature sizes shrink, but also be capable of moving a much larger and much heavier wafer and chuck. Today, Queensgate’s wafer stage can handle wafers weighing up to 14 kg while achieving a spatial resolution of 1.5 nm.

Goodman explains that Queensgate’s technology is not used to make large adjustments in the relative alignment of wafer and mask – which is done by longer travel stages using technologies such as air-bearings. Instead, the firm’s nanopositioning systems are used in the final stage of alignment, moving the wafer by less than 1 mm at nanometre precision.

Eliminating noise

Achieving this precision was a huge challenge that Queensgate has overcome by focusing on the sources of noise in its nanopositioning systems. Goodman says that there are two main types of noise that must be minimized. One is external vibration, which can come from a range of environmental sources – even human voices. The other is noise in the electronics that control the nanopositioning system’s piezoelectric actuators.

Goodman explains that noise reduction is achieved through the clever design of the mechanical and electronic systems used for nanopositioning. The positioning stage, for example, must be stiff to reject vibrational noise and notch filters are used to minimize the effect of electronic noise to the sub-nanometre level.

Queensgate provides its nanopostioning technology to OEMs, who integrate it within their products – which are then sold to chipmakers. Goodman says that Queensgate works in-house with its OEM customers to ensure that the desired specifications are achieved. “A stage or a positioner for 300 mm wafers is a highly customized application of our technologies,” he explains.

While the resulting nanopositioning systems are state of the art, Goodman points out that they will be used in huge facilities that process tens of thousands of wafers per month. “It is our aim and our customer’s aim that Queensgate nanopositioning technologies will be used in the mass manufacture of chips,” says Goodman. This means that the system must be very fast to achieve high throughput. “That is why we are using piezoelectric actuators for the final micron of positioning – they are very fast and very precise.”

Today most chip manufacturing is done in Asia, but there are ongoing efforts to boost production in the US and Europe to ensure secure supplies in the future. Goodman says this trend to semiconductor independence is an important opportunity for Queensgate. “It’s a highly competitive, growing and interesting market to be a part of,” he says.

• The datasheet for Queensgate’s NPS-XYP-250Q 300 mm wafer–mask alignment stage is now available. Goodman describes it as, “the physically ‘largest’ piezo nanopositioning stage ever delivered”.

The post Wafer mask alignment: Queensgate focuses on the move to 300 mm appeared first on Physics World.

UHV suitcases address an important challenge facing people who use ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) systems: it can be extremely difficult to move samples from one UHV system to another without the risk of contamination. While some UHV experiments are self contained, it is often the case that research benefits from using cutting-edge analytical techniques that are only available at large facilities such as synchrotrons, free-electron lasers and neutron sources.

Normally, fabricating a UHV sample in one place and studying it in another involves breaking the vacuum and then removing and transporting the sample. This is unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, no matter how clean a handling system is, exposing a sample to air will change or even destroy its material properties – often irrevocably. The second problem is that an opened UHV chamber must be baked out before it can be used again – and a bakeout can take several days out of a busy research schedule.

These problems can be avoided by connecting a portable UHV system (called a UHV suitcase) to the main vacuum chamber and then transferring the sample between the two. This UHV suitcase can then be used to move the sample across a university campus – or indeed, halfway around the world – where it can be transferred to another UHV system.

Ultralight aluminium UHV suitcases

While commercial designs have improved significantly over the past two decades, today’s UHV suitcases can still be heavy, unwieldy and expensive. To address these shortcomings, US-based VolkVac Instruments has developed the ULSC ultralight aluminium suitcase, which weighs less than 10 kg, and an even lighter version – the ULSC-R – which weighs in at less than 7 kg.

Key to the success of VolkVac’s UHV suitcases is the use of lightweight aluminium to create the portable vacuum chamber. The metal is used instead of stainless steel, a more conventional material for UHV chambers. As well as being lighter, aluminium is also much easier to machine. This means that VolkVac’s UHV suitcases can be efficiently machined from a single piece of aluminium. The lightweight material is also non-magnetic. This is an important feature for VolkVac because it means the suitcases can be used to transport samples with delicate magnetic properties.

Based in Escondido, California, VolkVac was founded in 2020 by the PhD physicist Igor Pinchuk. He says that the idea of a UHV suitcase is not new – pointing out that researchers have been creating their own bespoke solutions for decades. The earliest were simply standard vacuum chambers that were disconnected from one UHV system and then quickly wheeled to another – without being pumped.

This has changed in recent years with the arrival of new materials, vacuum pumps, pump controllers and batteries. It is now possible to create a lightweight, portable UHV chamber with a combination of passive and battery-powered pumps. Pinchuk explains that having an integrated pump is crucial because it is the only way to maintain a true UHV environment during transport.

Including pumps, controllers and batteries means that the material used to create the chamber of a UHV suitcase must be as light as possible to keep the overall weight to a minimum.

Aluminium is the ideal material

While aluminium is the ideal material for making UHV suitcases, it has one shortcoming – it is a relatively soft metal. Access to UHV chambers is provided by conflat flanges which have sharp circular edges that are driven into a copper-ring gasket to create an exceptionally airtight seal. The problem is that aluminium is too soft to provide durable long-lasting sharp knife edges on flanges.

This is why VolkVac has looked to Atlas Technologies for its expertise in bi-metal fabrication. Atlas fabricate aluminium flanges with titanium or stainless steel knife-edges. Because VolkVac requires non-magnetic materials for its UHV suitcases, Atlas developed titanium–aluminium flanges for the company.

Atlas Technologies’ Jimmy Stewart coordinates the company’s collaboration with VolkVac. He says that the first components for Pinchuk’s newest UHV suitcase, a custom iteration of VolkVac’s ULSC, have already been machined. He explains that VolkVac continues to work very closely with Atlas’s lead machinist and lead engineer to bring Pinchuk’s vision to life in aluminium and titanium.

Close relationship between Atlas and VolkVac

Stewart explains that this close relationship is necessary because bi-metal materials have very special requirements when it comes to things like welding and stress relief.

Stewart adds that Atlas often works like this with its customers to produce equipment that is used across a wide range of sectors including semiconductor fabrication, quantum computing and space exploration.

Because of the historical use of stainless steel in UHV systems, Stewart says that some customers have not yet used bi-metal components. “They may have heard about the benefits of bi-metal,” says Stewart, “but they don’t have the expertise. And that’s why they come to us – for our 30 years of experience and in-depth knowledge of bi-metal and aluminium vacuum.” He adds, “Atlas invented the market and pioneered the use of bi-metal components.”

Pinchuk agrees, saying that he knows stainless steel UHV technology forwards and backwards, but now he is benefitting from Atlas’s expertise in aluminium and bi-metal technology for his product development.

Three-plus decades of bi-metal expertise

Atlas Technologies was founded in 1993 by father and son Richard and Jed Bothell. Based in Port Townsend, Washington, the company specializes in creating aluminium vacuum chambers with bi-metal flanges. Atlas also designs and manufactures standard and custom bi-metal fittings for use outside of UHV applications.

Binding metals to aluminium to create vacuum components is a tricky business. The weld must be UHV compatible in terms of maintaining low pressure and not being prone to structural failure during the heating and cooling cycles of bakeout – or when components are cooled to cryogenic temperatures.

Jed Bothell points out that Japanese companies had pioneered the development of aluminium vacuum chambers but had struggled to create good-quality flanges. In the early 1990s, he was selling explosion-welded couplings and had no vacuum experience. His father, however, was familiar with the vacuum industry and realized that there was a business opportunity in creating bi-metal components for vacuum systems and other uses.

Explosion welding is a solid-phase technique whereby two plates of different metals are placed on top of each other. The top plate is then covered with an explosive material that is detonated starting at an edge. The force of the explosion pushes the plates together, plasticizing both metals and causing them to stick together. The interface between the two materials is wavy, which increases the bonded surface area and strengthens the bond.

Strong bi-metal bond

What is more, the air at the interface between the two metals is ionized, creating a plasma that travels along the interface ahead of the weld, driving out impurities before the weld is made – which further strengthens the bond. The resulting bi-metal material is then machined to create UHV flanges and other components.

As well as bonding aluminium to stainless steel, explosive welding can be used to create bi-metal structures of titanium and aluminium – avoiding the poor UHV properties of stainless steel.

“Stainless steel is bad material for vacuum in a lot of ways,” Bothell explains, He describes the hydrogen outgassing problem as “serious headwind” against using stainless steel for UHV (see box “UHV and XHV: science and industry benefit from bi-metal fabrication”). That is why Atlas developed bi-metal technologies that allow aluminium to be used in UHV components – and Bothell adds that it also shows promise for extreme high vacuum (XHV).

UHV and XHV: science and industry benefit from bi-metal fabrication

Modern experiments in condensed matter physics, materials science and chemistry often involve the fabrication and characterization of atomic-scale structures on surfaces. Usually, such experiments cannot be done at atmospheric pressure because samples would be immediately contaminated by gas molecules. Instead, these studies must be done in either UHV or XHV chambers – which both operate in the near absence of air. UHV and XHV also have important industrial applications including the fabrication of semiconductor chips.

UHV systems operate at pressures in the range 10⁻⁶–10⁻⁹ pa and XHV systems work at pressures of 10⁻¹⁰ pa and lower. In comparison, atmospheric pressure is about 10⁵ pa.

At UHV pressures, it takes several days for a single layer (monolayer) of contaminant gases to build up on a surface – whereas surfaces in XHV will remain pristine for hundreds of days. These low pressures also allow beams of charged particles such as electrons, protons and ions to travel unperturbed by collisions with gas molecules.

Crucial roles in science and industry

As a result UHV and XHV vacuum technologies play crucial roles in particle accelerators and support powerful analytical techniques including angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

UHV and XHV also allow exciting new materials to be created by depositing atoms or molecules on surfaces with atomic-layer precision – using techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy. This is very important in the fabrication of advanced semiconductors and other materials.

Traditionally, UHV components are made from stainless steel, whereas XHV systems are increasingly made from titanium. The latter is expensive and a much more difficult material to machine than stainless steel. As a result, titanium tends to be reserved for more specialized applications such as the X-ray lithography of semiconductor devices, particle-physics experiments and cryogenic systems. Unlike stainless steel, titanium is non-magnetic so it is also used in experiments that must be done in very low magnetic fields.

An important shortcoming of stainless steel is that the process used to create the material leaves it full of hydrogen, which finds its way into UHV chambers via a process called outgassing. Much of this hydrogen can be driven out by heating the stainless steel while the chamber is being pumped down to UHV pressures – a process called bakeout. But some hydrogen will be reabsorbed when the chamber is opened to the atmosphere, and therefore time-consuming bakeouts must be repeated every time a chamber is open.

Less hydrogen and hydrocarbon contamination

Aluminium contains about ten million times less hydrogen than stainless steel and it absorbs much less gas from the atmosphere when a UHV chamber is opened. And because aluminium contains a low amount of carbon, it results in less hydrocarbon-based contamination of the vacuum

Good thermal properties are crucial for UHV materials and aluminium conducts heat ten times better than stainless steel. This means that the chamber can be heated and cooled down much more quickly – without the undesirable hot and cold spots that affect stainless steel. As a bonus, aluminium bakeout can be done at 150 °C, whereas stainless steel must be heated to 250 °C. Furthermore, aluminium vacuum chambers retain most of the gains from previous bakeouts making them ideal for industrial applications where process up-time is highly valued.

Magnetic fields can have detrimental effects on experiments done at UHV, so aluminium’s slow magnetic permeability is ideal. The material also has low residual radioactivity and greater resistance to corrosion than stainless steel – making it favourable for use in high neutron-flux environments. Aluminium is also better at dampening vibrations than stainless steel – making delicate measurements possible.

When it comes to designing and fabricating components, aluminium is much easier to machine than stainless steel. This means that a greater variety of component shapes can be quickly made at a lower cost.

Aluminium is not as strong as stainless steel, which means more material is required. But thanks to its low density, about one third that of stainless steel, aluminium components still weigh less than their stainless steel equivalents.

All of these properties make aluminium an ideal material for vacuum components – and Atlas Technologies’ ability to create bi-metal flanges for aluminium vacuum systems means that both researchers and industrial users can gain from the UHV and XHV benefits of aluminium.

To learn more, visit atlasuhv.com or email info@atlasuhv.com.

The post VolkVac Instruments uses Atlas Technologies’ bi-metal expertise to create lightweight UHV suitcases appeared first on Physics World.

This video examines the unique measurement capabilities of the modular M81-SSM synchronous source measure system from Lake Shore Cryotronics. In this hands-on demonstration, Lake Shore looks at its components, including four types of amplifier modules that are combined with the M81-SSM instrument to enable low-level DC, AC and mixed AC/DC measurements.

The video discusses how all source and measure channels are simultaneously sampled at a very high rate and provide DC to 100 kHz operation – including lock-in operation – on up to three source and three measure channels at the same time to ensure time-correlated synchronous measurements.

Also demonstrated is how quickly and easily the M81-SSM can measure various values of resistance using very low DC and AC currents, illustrating the limitations of DC methods and the advantages of AC lock-in methods as the signal of interest becomes affected by thermal offsets and other parasitic effects.

Unique MeasureSync™ signal synchronization technology

The M81-SSM’s MeasureSync™ technology ensures inherently synchronized measurements from one to three source channels and from one to three measure channels per each half-rack instrument. Amplitude and frequency signals are transmitted to/from the remote amplifier modules using a proprietary real-time analogue method that minimizes noise and ground errors while ensuring tight time and phase synchronization between all modules. Because the M81-SSM sources and measures channels synchronously, multiple devices can be tested under identical conditions so users can easily obtain time-correlated data.

Connect up to three source modules and up to three measure modules at once

The M81-SSM provides DC to 100 kHz precision electrical source and measure capabilities with 375 kHz (2.67 μs) source/measure digitization rates across up to three source and three measurement front-end modules.

Users can choose from differential voltage measure (VM-10) and balanced current source (BCS-10) modules, and single-ended current measure (CM-10) and voltage source (VS-10) modules. All modules use 100% linear amplifiers and are powered by highly isolated linear power supplies for the lowest possible voltage/current noise performance — rivalling the most sensitive lock-in amplifiers and research lab-grade source and measure instruments.

On the VS-10 module, dual AC and DC range sourcing allows for precise full control of DC and AC amplitude signals with a single module and sample/device connection. And on the VM-10 module, seamless range change measuring significantly reduces or eliminates the typical range change-induced measurement offsets/discontinuities in signal sweeping applications that require numerous range changes.

For details, visit the M81-SSM webpage at www.lakeshore.com/M81.

The post New modular synchronous source measure system from Lake Shore Cryotronics appeared first on Physics World.

The programme focuses on the cancer radiation therapy patient pathway, with the aim of equipping students with the skills to progress onto careers in clinical, academic research or commercial medical physics opportunities.

Alan McWilliam, programme director of the new course, is also a reader in translational radiotherapy physics. He explains: “Radiotherapy is a mainstay of cancer treatment, used in around 50% of all treatments, and can be used together with surgery or systemic treatments like chemotherapy or immunotherapy. With a heritage dating back over 100 years, radiotherapy is now highly technical, allowing the radiation to be delivered with pin-point accuracy and is increasingly interdisciplinary to ensure a high-quality, curative delivery of radiation to every patient.”

“This new course builds on the research expertise at Manchester and benefits from being part of one of the largest university cancer departments in Europe, covering all aspects of cancer research. We believe this master’s reflects the modern field of medical physics, spanning the multidisciplinary nature of the field.”

Cancer pioneers

Manchester has a long history of developing solutions to drive improvements in healthcare, patients’ lives and the wellbeing of individuals. This new course draws on scientific research and innovation to equip those interested in a career in medical physics or cancer research with specialist skills that draw on a breadth of knowledge.  Indeed, the course units bring together expertise from academics that have pioneered, amongst other work, the use of image-guided radiotherapy, big data analysis using real-world radiotherapy data, novel MR imaging for tracking oxygenation of tumours during radiotherapy, and proton research beam lines. Students will benefit directly from this network of research groups by being able to join research seminars throughout the course.

Working with clinical scientists

The master’s course is taught together with clinical physicists from The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest single-site cancer hospitals in Europe and the only UK cancer hospital connected directly to a research institute. The radiotherapy department currently has 16 linear accelerators across four sites, an MR-guided radiotherapy service and one of the two NHS high-energy proton beam services. The Christie is currently one of only two cancer centres in the world with access to both proton beam and an MR-guided linear accelerator. For students, this partnership provides the opportunity to work with people at the forefront of cancer treatment developments.

To reflect the current state of radiotherapy, the University of Manchester has worked with The Christie to ensure students gain the skills necessary for a successful, modern, medical physics career. Units have a strong clinical focus, with access to technology that allows students to experience and learn from clinical workflows.

Students will learn the fundamentals of how radiotherapy works, from interactions of X-rays and matter, through X-ray beam generation control and measurement, and to how treatments are planned. Complementary to X-ray therapy, students will learn about the concepts of proton beam therapy, how the delivery of protons is different from X-rays, and the potential clinical benefits and unique difficulties of protons due to greater uncertainties from how protons interact with matter.

Delivering radiation with pin-point accuracy

The course will provide an in-depth understanding of how imaging can be used throughout the patient pathway to aid treatment decisions and guide the delivery of radiation.

The utility of CT, MRI and PET scanners across clinical pathways is explored, and the area of radiation delivery is complemented by material on radiobiology – how cells and tissues respond to radiation.

The difference between the response of tumours and normal tissue to radiation is called the therapeutic ratio. The radiobiology teaching will focus on how to maximize this ratio, essentially how to improve cure whilst minimising the risk of side-effects due to irradiation of nearby normal tissues. Students will also explore how this ratio could be enhanced or modified to improve the efficacy of all forms of radiotherapy.

Research and technology

A core strength of the research groups in Manchester is the use of routinely collected data in the evaluation of improvements in treatment delivery or the clinical translation of research findings. Many such improvements do not qualify for a full randomized clinical trial. However, there are many pragmatic methods to evaluate clinical benefit. Through studying clinical workflows and translation, these concepts will be explored along with investigating how to maximise results from all available data.

Modern medical physicists need an appreciation of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is emerging as an automation tool throughout the radiation therapy workflow; for example, segmentation of tissues, radiotherapy planning and quality assurance. This course delves into the fundamentals of AI and machine learning, giving students the opportunity to implement their own solution for image classification or image segmentation. For those with leadership aspirations, guest lecturers from various academic, clinical or commercial backgrounds will detail career routes and how to develop knowledge in this area.

Pioneering new learning and assessments

Programme director Alan McWilliam talks us through the design of the course and how students are evaluated:

“An aspect of the teaching we are particularly proud of is the design of the assessments throughout the units. Gone are written exams, with assessments allowing students to apply their new knowledge to real medical physics problems. Students will perform dosimetric calculations and Monte Carlo simulations of proton depositions, as well as build an image registration pipeline and pitch for funding in a dragon’s den (or shark tank) scenario. This form of assessment will allow students to demonstrate skills directly useful for future career pathways.”

“The final part of the course is the research project, to take place after the taught elements are complete. Students will choose from projects which will embed them with one of the academic or clinical groups. Examples for the current cohort include training an AI segmentation model for muscle in CT images and associating this with treatment outcomes; simulating prompt gamma rays from proton deliveries for dose verification; and assisting with commissioning MR-guided workflows for ultra-central lung treatments.”

Develop your specialist skills

The Medical Physics in Cancer Radiation Therapy MSc is a one-year full-time (two-year part-time) programme at the University of Manchester.

Applications are now open for the next academic year, and it is recommended to apply early, as applications may close if the course is full.

Find out more and apply: https://uom.link/medphyscancer 

The post Physicists in cancer radiotherapy appeared first on Physics World.

Join us for an insightful webinar based on Women and Physics (Second Edition), where we will explore the historical journey, challenges, and achievements of women in the field of physics, with a focus on English-speaking countries. The session will dive into various topics such as the historical role of women in physics, the current statistics on female representation in education and careers, navigating family life and career, and the critical role men play in fostering a supportive environment. The webinar aims to provide a roadmap for women looking to thrive in physics.

Laura McCullough is a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Her PhD from the University of Minnesota was in science education with a focus on physics education research. She is the recipient of multiple awards, including her university system’s highest teaching award, her university’s outstanding research award, and her professional society’s service award. She is a fellow of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Her primary research area is gender and science and surrounding issues. She has also done significant work on women in leadership, and on students with disabilities.

About this ebook

Women and Physics is the second edition of a volume that brings together research on a wide variety of topics relating to gender and physics, cataloguing the extant literature to provide a readable and concise grounding for the reader. While there are many biographies and collections of essays in the area of women and physics, no other book is as research focused. Starting with the current numbers of women in physics in English-speaking countries, it explores the different issues relating to gender and physics at different educational levels and career stages. From the effects of family and schooling to the barriers faced in the workplace and at home, this volume is an exhaustive overview of the many studies focused specifically on women and physics. This edition contains updated references and new chapters covering the underlying structures of the research and more detailed breakdowns of career issues.

The post Women and physics: navigating history, careers, and the path forward appeared first on Physics World.

Physicists and others with STEM backgrounds are sought after in industry for their analytical skills. However, traditional training in STEM subjects is often lacking when it comes to nurturing the soft skills that are needed to succeed in managerial and leadership positions.

Our guest in this podcast is Peter Hirst, who is Senior Associate Dean, Executive Education at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He explains how MIT Sloan works with executives to ensure that they efficiently and effectively acquire the skills and knowledge needed to be effective leaders.

This podcast is sponsored by the MIT Sloan School of Management

The post Peter Hirst: MIT Sloan Executive Education develops leadership skills in STEM employees appeared first on Physics World.

The particle physics community is in the vanguard of a global effort to realize the potential of quantum computing hardware and software for all manner of hitherto intractable research problems across the natural sciences. The end-game? A paradigm shift – dubbed “quantum advantage” – where calculations that are unattainable or extremely expensive on classical machines become possible, and practical, with quantum computers.

A case study in this regard is the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), the largest basic science laboratory in China and part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Headquartered in Beijing, IHEP hosts a multidisciplinary scientific programme spanning elementary particle physics, astrophysics as well as the planning, design and construction of large-scale accelerator projects – among them the China Spallation Neutron Source, which launched in 2018, and the High Energy Photon Source, due to come online in 2025.

Quantum opportunity

Notwithstanding its ongoing investment in experimental infrastructure, IHEP is increasingly turning its attention to the application of quantum computing and quantum machine-learning technologies to accelerate research discovery. In short, exploring use-cases in theoretical and experimental particle physics where quantum approaches promise game-changing scientific breakthroughs. A core partner in this endeavour is Shandong University (SDU) Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, home to another of China’s top-tier research programmes in high-energy physics (HEP).

With senior backing from Weidong Li and Xingtao Huang – physics professors at IHEP and SDU, respectively – the two laboratories began collaborating on the applications of quantum science and technology in summer 2022. This was followed by the establishment of a joint working group 12 months later. Operationally, the Quantum Computing for Simulation and Reconstruction (QC4SimRec) initiative comprises eight faculty members (drawn from both institutes) and is supported by a multidisciplinary team of two postdoctoral scientists and five PhD students.

“QC4SimRec is part of IHEP’s at-scale quantum computing effort, tapping into cutting-edge resource and capability from a network of academic and industry partners across China,” explains Hideki Okawa, a professor who heads up quantum applications research at IHEP (as well as co-chairing QC4SimRec alongside Teng Li, an associate professor in SDU’s Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science). “The partnership with SDU is a logical progression,” he adds, “building on a track-record of successful collaboration between the two centres in areas like high-performance computing, offline software and machine-learning applications for a variety of HEP experiments.”

Right now, Okawa, Teng Li and the QC4SimRec team are set on expanding the scope of their joint research activity. One principal line of enquiry focuses on detector simulation – i.e. simulating the particle shower development in the calorimeter, which is one of the most demanding tasks for the central processing unit (CPU) in collider experiments. Other early-stage applications include particle tracking, particle identification, and analysis of the fundamental physics of particle dynamics and collision.

“Working together in QC4SimRec,” explains Okawa, “IHEP and SDU are intent on creating a global player in the application of quantum computing and quantum machine-learning to HEP problems.”

Sustained scientific impact, of course, is contingent on recruiting the brightest and best talent in quantum hardware and software, with IHEP’s near-term focus directed towards engaging early-career scientists, whether from domestic or international institutions. “IHEP is very supportive in this regard,” adds Okawa, “and provides free Chinese language courses to fast-track the integration of international scientists. It also helps that our bi-weekly QC4SimRec working group meetings are held in English.”

A high-energy partnership

Around 700 km south-east of Beijing, the QC4SimRec research effort at SDU is overseen by Xingtao Huang, dean of the university’s Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science and an internationally recognized expert in machine-learning technologies and offline software for data processing and analysis in particle physics.

“There’s huge potential upside for quantum technologies in HEP,” he explains. In the next few years, for example, QC4SimRec will apply innovative quantum approaches to build on SDU’s pre-existing interdisciplinary collaborations with IHEP across a range of HEP initiatives – including the Beijing Spectrometer III (BESIII), the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) and the Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC).

One early-stage QC4SimRec project evaluated quantum machine-learning techniques for the identification and discrimination of muon and pion particles within the BESIII detector. Comparison with traditional machine-learning approaches shows equivalent performance on the same datasets and, by extension, the feasibility of applying quantum machine-learning to data analysis in next-generation collider experiments.

“This is a significant result,” explains Huang, “not least because particle identification – the identification of charged-particle species in the detector – is one of the biggest challenges in HEP experiments.”

Huang is currently seeking to recruit senior-level scientists with quantum and HEP expertise from Europe and North America, building on a well-established faculty team of 48 staff members (32 of them full professors) working on HEP. “We have several open faculty positions at SDU in quantum computing and quantum machine-learning,” he notes. “We’re also interested in recruiting talented postdoctoral researchers with quantum know-how.”

As a signal of intent, and to raise awareness of SDU’s global ambitions in quantum science and technology, Huang and colleagues hosted a three-day workshop (co-chaired by IHEP) last summer to promote the applications of quantum computing and classical/quantum machine-learning in particle physics. With over 100 attendees and speakers attending the inaugural event, including several prominent international participants, a successful follow-on workshop was held in Changchun earlier this year, with planning well under way for the next instalment in 2025.

Along a related coordinate, SDU has launched a series of online tutorials to support aspiring Masters and PhD students keen to further their studies in the applications of quantum computing and quantum machine-learning within HEP.

“Quantum computing is a hot topic, but there’s still a relatively small community of scientists and engineers working on HEP applications,” concludes Huang. “Working together, IHEP and SDU are building the interdisciplinary capacity in quantum science and technology to accelerate frontier research in particle physics. Our long-term goal is to establish a joint national laboratory with dedicated quantum computing facilities across both campuses.”

One thing is clear: the QC4SimRec collaboration offers ambitious quantum scientists a unique opportunity to progress alongside China’s burgeoning quantum ecosystem – an industry, moreover, that’s being heavily backed by sustained public and private investment. “For researchers who want to be at the cutting edge in quantum science and HEP, China is as good a place as any,” Okawa concludes.

• For further information about QC4SimRec opportunities, please contact Hideki Okawa at IHEP or Xingtao Huang at SDU.

The post IHEP-SDU in search of ‘quantum advantage’ to open new frontiers in high-energy physics appeared first on Physics World.

Recent battery papers commonly employ interpretation models for which diffusion impedances are in series with interfacial impedance. The models are fundamentally flawed because the diffusion impedance should be part of the interfacial impedance. A general approach is presented that shows how the charge-transfer resistance and diffusion resistance are functions of the concentration of reacting species at the electrode surface. The resulting impedance model incorporates diffusion impedances as part of the interfacial impedance.

A Q&A session follows the presentation.

Mark Orazem obtained his BS and MS degrees from Kansas State University and his PhD in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1983, he began his career as assistant professor at the University of Virginia, and in 1988 joined the faculty of the University of Florida, where he is Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. Mark is a fellow of The Electrochemical Society, International Society of Electrochemistry, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as President of the International Society of Electrochemistry and co-authored, with Bernard Tribollet of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), the textbook entitled Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy, now in its second edition. Mark received the ECS Henry B. Linford Award, ECS Corrosion Division H. H. Uhlig Award, and with co-author Bernard Tribollet, the 2019 Claude Gabrielli Award for contributions to electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. In addition to writing books, he has taught short courses on impedance spectroscopy for The Electrochemical Society since 2000.

The post On the proper use of a Warburg impedance appeared first on Physics World.

The webinar is directly linked with a special issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion on Advances in the Physics Basis of Negative Triangularity Tokamaks; featuring contributions from all of the speakers, and many more papers from the leading groups researching this fascinating topic.

In recent years the fusion community has begun to focus on the practical engineering of tokamak power plants. From this, it became clear that the power exhaust problem, extracting the energy produced by fusion without melting the plasma-facing components, is just as important and challenging as plasma confinement. To these ends, negative triangularity plasma shaping holds unique promise.

Conceptually, negative triangularity is simple. Take the standard positive triangularity plasma shape, ubiquitous among tokamaks, and flip it so that the triangle points inwards. By virtue of this change in shape, negative triangularity plasmas have been experimentally observed to dramatically improve energy confinement, sometimes by more than a factor of two. Simultaneously, the plasma shape is also found to robustly prevent the transition to the improved confinement regime H-mode. While this may initially seem a drawback, the confinement improvement can enable negative triangularity to still achieve similar confinement to a positive triangularity H-mode. In this way, it robustly avoids the typical difficulties of H-mode: damaging edge localized modes (ELMs) and the narrow scrape-off layer (SOL) width. This is the promise of negative triangularity, an elegant and simple path to alleviating power exhaust while preserving plasma confinement.

The biggest deficiency is currently uncertainty. No tokamak in the world is designed to create negative triangularity plasmas and it has received a fraction of the theory community’s attention. In this webinar, through both theory and experiment, we will explore the knowns and unknowns of negative triangularity and evaluate its future as a power plant solution.

Justin Ball (chair) is a research scientist at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. He earned his Masters from MIT in 2013 and his PhD in 2016 at Oxford University studying the effects of plasma shaping in tokamaks, for which he was awarded the European Plasma Physics PhD Award. In 2019, he and Jason Parisi published the popular science book, The Future of Fusion Energy. Currently, Justin is the principal investigator of the EUROfusion TSVV 2 project, a ten-person team evaluating the reactor prospects of negative triangularity using theory and simulation.

Alessandro Balestri is a PhD student at the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) located within the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). His research focuses on using experiments and gyrokinetic simulations to achieve a deep understanding on how negative triangularity reduces turbulent transport in tokamak plasmas and how this beneficial effect can be optimized in view of a fusion power plant. He received his Bachelor and Master degrees in physics at the University of Milano-Bicocca where he carried out a thesis on the first gyrokinetic simulations for the negative triangularity option of the novel Divertor Tokamak Test facility.

Andrew “Oak” Nelson is an associate research scientist with Columbia University where he specializes in negative triangularity (NT) experiments and reactor design. Oak received his PhD in plasma physics from Princeton University in 2021 for work on the H-mode pedestal in DIII-D and has since dedicated his career to uncovering mechanisms to mitigate the power-handling needs faced by tokamak fusion pilot plants. Oak is an expert in the edge regions of NT plasmas and one of the co-leaders of the EU-US Joint Task Force on Negative Triangularity Plasmas. In addition to NT work, Oak consults regularly on various physics topics for Commonwealth Fusion Systems and heads several fusion-outreach efforts.

Tim Happel is the head of the Plasma Dynamics Division at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich. His research centres around turbulence and tokamak operational modes with enhanced energy confinement. He is particularly interested in the physics of the Improved Energy Confinement Mode (I-Mode) and plasmas with negative triangularity. During his PhD, which he received in 2010 from the University Carlos III in Madrid, he developed a Doppler backscattering system for the investigation of plasma flows and their interaction with turbulent structures. For this work, he was awarded the Itoh Prize for Plasma Turbulence.

Haley Wilson is a PhD candidate studying plasma physics at Columbia University. Her main research interest is the integrated modelling of reactor-class tokamak core scenarios, with a focus on highly radiative, negative triangularity scenarios. The core modelling of MANTA is her first published work in this area, but her most recent manuscript submission expands the MANTA study to a broader operational space. She was recently selected for an Office of Science Graduate Student Research award, to work with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on whole device modelling of negative triangularity tokamaks using the FREDA framework.

Olivier Sauter obtained his PhD at CRPP-EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland in 1992, followed by post-doc at General Atomics in 1992-93 and ITER-San Diego (1995/96), leading to the bootstrap current coefficients and experimental studies on Neoclassical tearing modes. He has been JET Task Force Leader, Eurofusion Research Topic Coordinator and recipient of the 2013 John Dawson Award for excellence in plasma physics research and nominated since 2016 as ITER Scientist Fellow in the area of integrated modelling. He is a senior scientist at SPC-EPFL, supervising several PhD theses, and active with AUG, DIII-D, JET, TCV, WEST focusing on real-time simulations and negative triangularity plasmas.

About this journal

Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion is a monthly publication dedicated to the dissemination of original results on all aspects of plasma physics and associated science and technology.

Editor-in-chief: Jonathan Graves University of York, UK and EPFL, Switzerland.

The post Negative triangularity tokamaks: a power plant plasma solution from the core to the edge? appeared first on Physics World.