iop pab group newsletter

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INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER Dec 2013 Issue 8 Inside this issue: A new concept for X-ray Free-Electron Lasers 2 IOP Plasma Wakefield Accelerators Meeting 4 Linear Collider UK Meeting, JAI, Oxford 6 Precious cargo arrives at RAL 9 4th Vacuum Symposium UK Conference 11 PAB Group and UK Events 14 International Calendar 15 IOP PAB Committee 16 As 2013 draws to a close it is appropriate to look back on the PAB Group’s achieve- ments over the past year, as well as take a look ahead to some of the activities we have planned for 2014. 2013 was a landmark year for us as our Group membership soared to more than 300! To be precise, as of November 19 th , we had a total of 314 members, comprising 26 Fellows, 77 Members, and 211 Associate, Student and Affiliate Members of the IoP. This increasing membership is a reflection of the high degree of interest in our field: particle accelerators are exciting and technologically cutting-edge devices that enable a broad range of science from high-energy particle physics through to studies of the structure, properties and func- tions of atomic and molecular systems in physics, chemistry, biology and materials scienc- es. The award of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert, for theoretical work that was experimentally verified by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, is only the latest in a distinguished line of Nobel (and other) prizes awarded for fundamental science discoveries that were made possible by the development of particle accelerators. And congratulations to Lyn Evans, who was awarded the IoP’s 2013 Glazebrook Medal ‘for his outstanding leadership of the Large Hadron Collider project’. We were delighted to award the 2013 PAB Group Prize for Distinguished Contributions to Ian Gardner ‘for his many innovative contributions to the physics and engineering of high-power proton accelerators and beams’. Thanks to our active and engaged membership, and the initiative of our dynamic Group Committee, we organised 6 highly successful Group meetings and events in 2013: ‘advanced computing for accelerators’ (Daresbury, January); ‘training the next genera- tion’ (Oxford, March); ‘plasma wakefield accelerators’ (Daresbury, June); ‘accelerators for security applications’ (AWE, September); a national postgraduate open day (Daresbury, December); and we look forward to our final meeting of 2013: ‘accelerators for future spallation sources’ (Huddersfield, December 12th). In addition the Group was delighted to sponsor externally-organised meetings, including the National Vacuum Electronics Conference (‘NVEC’), a workshop on low-emittance rings, and the Vacuum Symposium. For 2014 we already have several Group activities organised. A meeting on ‘opportunities at the proposed CLARA FEL test facility’ will be held at Daresbury on January 13th, and on January 31 st we are co-sponsoring (with STFC) a community meeting on ‘plasma wake- field acceleration’ at IoP HQ. More details are given in this newsletter. Other meetings are planned on ‘accelerator engineering’ as well as ‘future particle-physics accelerators’, and of course we will arrange our annual conference – more details on these will follow early in 2014. Please support your Group’s events and activities in 2014, and don’t hesitate to contact any member of the Committee with any other suggestions for how we can support the UK accelerator community. Best wishes for the festive season, Phil Burrows Editorial

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Page 1: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

IOP PAB GROUP

NEWSLETTER

Dec 2013

Issue 8

Inside this issue:

A new concept for X-ray

Free-Electron Lasers

2

IOP Plasma Wakefield

Accelerators Meeting

4

Linear Collider UK Meeting,

JAI, Oxford

6

Precious cargo arrives at

RAL

9

4th Vacuum Symposium UK

Conference

11

PAB Group and UK Events 14

International Calendar 15

IOP PAB Committee 16

As 2013 draws to a close it is appropriate to look back on the PAB Group’s achieve-

ments over the past year, as well as take a look ahead to some of the activities we have

planned for 2014.

2013 was a landmark year for us as our Group membership soared to more than 300! To

be precise, as of November 19th, we had a total of 314 members, comprising 26 Fellows,

77 Members, and 211 Associate, Student and Affiliate Members of the IoP. This increasing

membership is a reflection of the high degree of interest in our field: particle accelerators

are exciting and technologically cutting-edge devices that enable a broad range of science

from high-energy particle physics through to studies of the structure, properties and func-

tions of atomic and molecular systems in physics, chemistry, biology and materials scienc-

es.

The award of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert, for

theoretical work that was experimentally verified by experiments at the Large Hadron

Collider, is only the latest in a distinguished line of Nobel (and other) prizes awarded for

fundamental science discoveries that were made possible by the development of particle

accelerators. And congratulations to Lyn Evans, who was awarded the IoP’s 2013

Glazebrook Medal ‘for his outstanding leadership of the Large Hadron Collider project’.

We were delighted to award the 2013 PAB Group Prize for Distinguished Contributions

to Ian Gardner ‘for his many innovative contributions to the physics and engineering of

high-power proton accelerators and beams’.

Thanks to our active and engaged membership, and the initiative of our dynamic Group

Committee, we organised 6 highly successful Group meetings and events in 2013:

‘advanced computing for accelerators’ (Daresbury, January); ‘training the next genera-

tion’ (Oxford, March); ‘plasma wakefield accelerators’ (Daresbury, June); ‘accelerators for

security applications’ (AWE, September); a national postgraduate open day (Daresbury,

December); and we look forward to our final meeting of 2013: ‘accelerators for future

spallation sources’ (Huddersfield, December 12th). In addition the Group was delighted

to sponsor externally-organised meetings, including the National Vacuum Electronics

Conference (‘NVEC’), a workshop on low-emittance rings, and the Vacuum Symposium.

For 2014 we already have several Group activities organised. A meeting on ‘opportunities

at the proposed CLARA FEL test facility’ will be held at Daresbury on January 13th, and

on January 31st we are co-sponsoring (with STFC) a community meeting on ‘plasma wake-

field acceleration’ at IoP HQ. More details are given in this newsletter. Other meetings

are planned on ‘accelerator engineering’ as well as ‘future particle-physics accelerators’,

and of course we will arrange our annual conference – more details on these will follow

early in 2014.

Please support your Group’s events and activities in 2014, and don’t hesitate to contact

any member of the Committee with any other suggestions for how we can support the

UK accelerator community.

Best wishes for the festive season,

Phil Burrows

Editorial

Page 2: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 2

Accelerators for Future

Spallation Sources: ESS,

MYRRHA and the ISIS

Upgrade

Cockcroft Institute,

Daresbury, 12 Dec 2013

IoP CLARA Community

Meeting

Cockcroft Institute,

Daresbury, 13 Jan, 2014

Plasma Wakefield

Acceleration

STFC - IOP PAB Group

Joint Workshop

Institute of Physics,

London, 31 Jan, 2014

Full details on Page 14

PAB Events News from the Laboratories — Daresbury

A New Concept for 'Perfect Pulses' from X-ray Free-Electron Lasers

ASTeC researchers have been developing a new technique which they first proposed in 2010

to dramatically improve the output quality of X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers (FELs). The technique

should make the X-ray pulses more reproducible and provide users with many more photons

in the very narrow wavelength bands relevant to their experiments. In effect the useful

‘brightness’ of the FEL can be greatly enhanced. The work has been done in collaboration with

the University of Strathclyde and was recently published in Physical Review Letters.

X-ray Free-Electron Lasers FELs (such as the LCLS at SLAC in California, SACLA at SPring-8 in

Japan) use high energy electron bunches, produced by particle accelerators, to generate intense

pulses of X-rays. While these FELs are currently opening up many new frontiers across science

their full potential is still limited by the chaotically noisy time structure and wavelength compo-

sition of the pulses of X-rays they produce. What is really needed for a number of applications

are reproducible pulses where each X-ray photon is at almost exactly the same wave-

length. Such ‘Perfect Pulses’ could open up new scientific frontiers, such as in time-resolved X-

ray spectroscopy or studies of molecular and cluster fragmentation.

Although other methods do exist for generating high quality pulses from FELs these can require

complex optical components or synchronisation with other lasers which limits the wavelength

tuning or repetition rate of the output. The new method proposed by the ASTeC researchers

and collaborators does not rely on optics or lasers and can therefore be used at any wave-

length or repetition rate. The idea is to use extra magnets along the FEL to slow down the

electron bunches so they slip back through the X-ray pulse and ‘smear out’ the noise. By doing

this, the narrow wavelength band of the X-ray photons is reduced by a factor of over one hun-

dred and all the pulses become smooth and reproducible . Computer simulations of the tech-

nique predict it may be possible to produce ‘near-perfect’ pulses of X-rays.

This is just one of the novel FEL concepts that could be proven in principle then further devel-

oped on a dedicated FEL test facility, such as the proposed CLARA project, an upgrade to the

existing VELA Facility at Daresbury Laboratory.

The two images show in grey the normal output pulse from a hard X-ray FEL. The first image shows

the pulse time structure, and the second image the breakdown of power over different wavelengths.

With the new technique applied the output would be as shown in red. The pulse profile has been

dramatically smoothed and the range of wavelengths of the X-ray photons has been compressed into

a far narrower band.

IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 3: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Original Paper:

B. W. J. McNeil, N. R. Thompson and D. J. Dunning, “Transform-Limited X-Ray Pulse Genera-

tion from a High-Brightness Self-Amplified Spontaneous-Emission Free-Electron Laser”, Physical

Review Letters110, 134802 (2013).

Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 134802 (2013) (link opens in a new window)

© 2013 Science and Technology Facilities Council - All Rights Reserved.

Page 3

International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC ‘13)

From 12th to 17th May a group of 16 staff and students represented ASTeC at IPAC ’13 in

Shanghai, China. This is the largest annual international conference in accelerator science, with

over 1000 delegates.

ASTeC facilities and science were well represented in the main sessions of the conference. De-

tailed measurements using the ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers in Combined Experiments) and

EMMA (Electron Machine with Many Applications) accelerators were the main topic of a talk by

Kai Hock from the University of Liverpool. ALICE, one a few operating ERLs worldwide, also

featured in another talk by R. Hajima from the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority on “Beam

Commissioning of Energy Recovery Linacs”.

Recent publications from N. Thompson and D. Dunning from the MARS (Magnets and Radiation

Sources) group on novel free electron laser design schemes featured in talks by S. Reiche and J.

Wu from Paul Scherrer Institute and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre.

Apart from the main oral sessions, a key part of IPAC conferences are the poster sessions, at

which ASTeC presented around 35 papers as either lead or contributing author.

The contributions reflected the diverse range of research and technology development carried

out in the center. A number of papers highlighted the recent achievement of first beam on VE-

LA (Versatile Electron Linear Accelerator) at Daresbury Laboratory in April this year. Progress

on the design of a proposed advanced test facility for future light sources ‘CLARA’ (Compact

Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications) was also covered in detail.

ASTeC’s strong knowledge base in FFAG (Fixed Field Alternating Gradient) accelerators was

strongly represented with papers on lattice and beam dynamics both in EMMA and for future

accelerators. Hadron and muon accelerator expertise was represented in papers on the Front

End Test Stand developments at RAL, ASTeC’s contributions to ISIS upgrades and designs for

the Neutrino Factory. The status and recent achievements of the Muon Ionisation and Cooling

Experiment (MICE) at RAL was also presented.

Page 4: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

James Jones with his poster ASTeC participants Philippe Goudket and

Reza Valizadeh

Technological developments are an integral part of ASTeC’s research and were described in pa-

pers on permanent magnet quadrupoles for the Compact Linear Collider project, the UK super-

conducting planar undulator project, Crab Cavities for the Large Hadron Collider High Luminos-

ity Upgrade and the Daresbury International Cryomodule Project.

The conference wouldn’t run so smoothly without the contributions of staff to assist in it’s run-

ning. As a member of the JACOW publishing team, Sue Waller supported the publication of the

paper submissions, throughout the duration of the conference. Deepa Angal-Kalinin, leader of

the Accelerator Physics Group, chaired the contributed oral session on beam instrumentation

and feedback.

Page 4 Page 4

IOP Plasma Wakefield Accelerators Meeting

The IOP Plasma Wakefield Accelerators meeting was held at Daresbury Laboratory on 18th

June. The one-day meeting brought together experts from nine UK departments and institutes

to discuss recent advances in plasma wakefield accelerators and strategies for advancing the

UK’s interests in this area.

The program of talks covered many aspects regarding Laser and Particle driven Wakefield accel-

erators, enabling technologies and their applicability to free-electron lasers. Most accelerator

technologies are now sufficiently mature that it is doubtful that non-incremental progress will be

possible. For that sort of break-through novel solutions become necessary and advocates of

plasma wakefield acceleration schemes believe they can deliver them. PAB Group sponsored this

meeting as a forum for UK interested parties, to review progress and to discuss next steps. The

attendance of 46 reflects the active research interest in this important topic.

Raoul Trines (STFC-RAL), Ranaul Islam (Strathclyde) and Simon Hooker (Oxford) opened the

meeting with talks on photon acceleration models, bubble regime simulations and use of wave-

guides. Two talks on proton driven systems, given by Guoxing Xia (CI) and Zulf Najmudin

(ICSTM), featured experimental reviews and details of the AWAKE project; it was noted that

simulations concluded that major practical applications would require much shorter proton

bunches than so far achieved.

Brian McNeil (Strathclyde) examined the challenges of one possible application of the technolo-

gy, to next generation FEL sources. This talk was complemented by an overview from James

Jones (ASTeC-DL) on short pulse diagnostics, noting that sub-ps resolutions were already envis-

aged in R&D test facilities such as the proposed CLARA project at Daresbury.

Page 5: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Marco Borghesi (QUB) reviewed the alternative approach of direct laser driven acceleration (ie

not wakes) of ions, including experimental achievements. Clearly there are many ‘horses for

courses’ areas for potential development.

The meeting concluded with a useful discussion on future strategy for R&D progress chaired by

Professor Andrei Seryi of the John Adams Institute . It was evident that the UK already punches

beyond its weight in this area, but that this could not continue without significant new

investment, perhaps mainly from STFC but also with EPSRC assistance. Effective collaboration

between university groups and also the STFC laboratories DL and RAL, was crucial. It was

accepted that this needed much more groundwork in the coming months, and that further

‘forum’ style meetings in 2014 would be valuable.

Thanks must go to the excellent speakers on the day and the IOP-PAB group, the Cockcroft

Institute and STFC for their support of this event.

Mike Poole

Page 5

Professor Zulfikar Najmudin from Imperial

College with Trina Thakker, STFC

Professor Marco Borghesi of Queens University Belfast

Publication of the CLARA conceptual Design Report

The Conceptual Design Report of the proposed new Free

Electron Laser Test Facility, CLARA, was published on the

ASTeC web site in July 2013, and is available for download

here:

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/ASTeC/News+and+events/43857.aspx

Page 6: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

News from the Laboratories — John Adams Institute

Linear Collider UK Meeting, Oxford, September 2013

UK community members discussing the International Linear Collider at the September LCUK meeting at

the John Adams Institute, Oxford University, September 2013.

In September 70 members of the UK particle physics community met in Oxford and participated

in an informal meeting of the Linear Collider – UK (LCUK) group. The meeting, which attracted

several distinguished international speakers, was focussed on reviewing the status of the Interna-

tional Linear Collider (ILC) project that has been proposed by the Japanese high-energy physics

community to be built in Japan, and on exploring opportunities for UK involvement.

The ILC is a proposed 20-30km long electron-positron collider whose design has been devel-

oped over the past decade by an international team of several hundred accelerator physicists

and engineers. Several members of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science have played

key roles in leading the design of this gargantuan accelerator facility. A core purpose of the ILC

would be to serve as a Higgs boson ‘factory’, producing tens of thousands of Higgses per year in

a very clean experimental environment, thereby allowing precision measurements of the parti-

cle’s properties in a complementary fashion to ongoing studies at the LHC.

In the past 18 months developments have proceeded apace. Following the announcement of the

discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in 2012, the Japa-

nese community announced its intention to bid to host the ILC in Japan. The ILC Technical De-

sign Report was officially completed and presented to the International Committee on Future

Accelerators (ICFA) in June 2013, and in September 2013 a recommendation for the ILC site

(Kitakami, Iwate prefecture) was made. The project has a high political profile in Japan, with

broad cross-party and industrial support, and over the coming months the Japanese Govern-

ment is expected to initiate discussions on implementing the project with potential international

partners.

Page 6

Page 7: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 7

The timely Oxford meeting, organised by Phil Burrows (JAI) and Mark Thomson (Cambridge),

reviewed the ILC physics programme, as well as the accelerator and detector designs. The con-

clusion is that there are many opportunities for the UK to be (further) involved in realising both

the accelerator and the detectors, and the group agreed to work on honing our strategy for

advancing the project in the UK. Follow-on meetings are planned for November 2013.

CLIC Workshop 2014

Accelerator, Detector and

Physics Studies

CERN, 3-7 Feb. 2014

LA3NET 3rd Topical Workshop on Novel Acceleration Techniques

HZDR, Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany, 28-30 Apr. 2014

oPAC Workshop on Beam Diagnostics

Vienna, 8-9 May 2014

IPAC 2014

Dresden, 16-20 June 2014

Free-Electron Lasers, FEL’14

Basel, 25-29 Aug. 2014

27th Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC’14

ICC, Geneva, 1-5 Sep. 2104

Full details on Page 15

Calendar

JAI participate in UK-Russia Joint Committee on Scientific and Technical Co-operation

Participants of the 11th session of the Ministerial UK Russia Joint Committee on Scientific and

Technical Co-operation, 17 October 2013, Royal Society, London. Photo courtesy of UK Science

and Innovation Network (SIN)-Russia.

In October 2013, JAI participated in the 11th session of the Ministerial UK-Russia Joint Commit-

tee on Scientific and Technical Co-operation, held at the Royal Society, London. The meeting

represented an important milestone in strengthening the cooperation between the two coun-

tries. The meeting was hosted by Prof Martyn Poliakoff, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society,

and was organised by the British Embassy’s Science & Innovation Network (SIN)-Russia led by

Dr Julia Knights and Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science in cooperation with the UK’s

Department for Business Innovation and Skills, and the Royal Society.

The JAI was represented at the event by Prof A.Seryi, who had a chance to describe to the par-

ticipants the opportunities for life science and technology arising from recent developments in

accelerator science.

The Joint Statement, signed by Minister Vince Cable, Secretary of State for the UK’s Department

for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Minister Dmitry Livanov of the Russian Ministry of Educa-

tion and Science, highlighted in particular, accelerator science and particle physics, energy effi-

ciency and life sciences, as well as Space, climate and Arctic science as the priority areas for bilat-

eral cooperation over the next two years in research science.

Page 8: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

AWE — Particle Beams for National Security Applications

On the 9th of September the Atomic Weapons Establishment hosted a Particle Accelerators and

Beams Group event entitled ‘Particle Beams for National Security Applications’. The meeting was

well attended with over 40 registrations from various Universities, National Laboratories, and

Companies from all over the UK. Six talks were given over the afternoon on state of the art

particle accelerators, proposed designs, computational modelling techniques, as well as existing

and emerging applications.

Aled Jones, AWE

Page 8 Page 8

Professor Roger Barlow, University of Huddersfield, presents

‘PIP: a small proton ns FFAG for generating neutrons’

Page 9: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 9

News from the Laboratories — RAL

Precious cargo arrives at RAL

The first 1m long section of the Front End Test Stand (FETS) Radio Frequency Quadrupole

(RFQ) accelerator has arrived for inspection at the Rutherford Appleton Lab (RAL). FETS is

being developed as a driver for a wide range of future applications including neutron spallation

sources, neutrino factories, muon colliders, ADSRs and nuclear waste transmutation. The FETS

RFQ has been designed and built in the UK by ISIS, Imperial College and NAB Precision Engi-

neering Hitchin.

Machined from 16 blocks of high purity copper, the finished RFQ will be 4 meters long. Each 1

m long section is comprised of 4 separate vanes. The vanes have very precise undulations ma-

chined along their tips. These undulations shape an electric field, that first bunches the beam

then accelerates it to 3 MeV.

Peter Savage, Imperial College, Lead Mechanical Engineer on the FETS project said, “We’re using

a novel bolted together design. It has been a challenge, but I am sure we can meet the required

10 µm tolerance.”

“Machining the copper without using coolant or lubricant has been a real headache for NAB, but

persistence has paid off”, said Peter. Having passed all inspection tests the final machining of the

last 3 sections is now underway with delivery to RAL expected in early 2014.

The two FETS leaders, Alan Letchford, ISIS, and Juergen Pozimski, Imperial College are confident

about the progress, they say, ”We hope to accelerate our first beam through the FETS RFQ

near the end of 2014.”

The finished RFQ will operate at 324 MHz and accelerate a 60 mA H– beam at a 2 ms, 50 Hz

duty cycle. Alan makes an important point, "The engineering is critical, this is a very precise ob-

ject which we're going to hammer with 1 MW of microwave power.”

[email protected]

Dave Wilshire, STFC Metrology Section, inspecting

the first 1m long section of the FETS RFQ.

Page 10: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

UK Pulsed Power Symposium 2014 18 March 2014

Loughborough, UK, 2014

18 March | Holywell Park Conference Centre |

Loughborough University | United Kingdom

Following the acknowledged success of the previous UK Pulsed Power Symposium Loughbor-

ough 2011, a further Symposium will now take place in 2014. This one-day international event at

Holywell Park Conference Centre on the Loughborough University campus is an opportunity to

meet the leading names in UK Pulsed Power Physics and Technology and to discuss recent ad-

vances in the broad range of applications of pulsed power. The event will include a key-note ad-

dress, three high level oral and poster sessions, two coffee breaks and lunch. An optional dinner

at the Burleigh Court will end the day.

Co-Chairs:

Professor Bucur Novac, Loughborough University IEEE UK&RI Industrial Electronics Section

Chair

Professor Ivor Smith, Loughborough University

More details at:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/eese/news/events/uk-pulsed-power-symposium-2014.html

Page 10 Page 10

Page 11: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

4th Vacuum Symposium UK Conference

On 16/17 October 2013 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, the 4th Vacuum Symposium UK Confer-

ence was pleased to host a variety of technical meetings of general and specialist interest that

attracted 294 registered delegates. This meeting is now established as an annual event alongside

Vacuum EXPO and provides a much needed forum for scientists, academics, technicians and in-

dustrial users who share ‘vacuum’ as a common interest.

This year there were four, free to attend, technical meetings arranged with support from a num-

ber of commercial sponsors as well as the Institute of Physics and the British Vacuum Council.

The Vacuum-based coating technology and applications meeting provided an update on

methods where vacuum and the use of plasmas and energy-assistance methods are used in indus-

trial coating processes. Erwin Kessels from the Technical University of Eindhoven gave an inter-

esting overview of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) which allows for the deposition of uniform,

ultrathin films with Ångstrom-level resolution and with a high conformality on complex (nano)

structures. Other contributions related to energy-assisted physical vapour deposition methods

where energetic atoms of coating material are deposited on a substrate, often with additional

energy provided by energetic ion bombardment. An overview of the effects of energy-assistance

on coating properties was given by John Colligon which highlighted the importance of added en-

ergy per depositing atom and the effects of impurities on the properties of the deposited materi-

al. Subsequent talks by Arutiun Ehiasarian (High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering: HIPIMS)

and James Dutton (High Target Utilisation Sputtering: HiTUS) illustrated the latest methods for

producing coatings using energy-assistance. Talks on applications of the coatings included a Plas-

ma-Assisted Chemical Vapour Deposition diamond coating process described by Chris Walker

of Diamond Hard Coatings Ltd which allows formation of well-bonded carbon materials on a

range of substrates. Another novel coating was described by Ben Wardzinski of the European

Space and Technology Laboratory (ESTL). Traditionally lead has been used to coat ball-bearings

but, owing to the toxic nature of lead, alternatives, such as Indium, are being sought. The results

showed that indium had a reasonable lifetime and, although this was shorter than lead, its friction

coefficient was lower.

Page 11

Page 12: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

A third application of coatings as a pumping surface for synchrotron and accelerator systems was

described by Oleg Malyshev of STFC Daresbury Laboratory. Alloys of Ti, Zr, Hf and Zr and of

individual metals have been tested and shown to have good pumping properties, low activation

energies and reduced electron-stimulated desorption yields.

The All Aspects of Leak Detection meeting proved very popular with delegates wishing to

learn more about leak detection methods and see latest instruments presented by vacuum

equipment suppliers. The opening invited talk presented by Dr Richard Pilkington on the ‘History

of leak detection’ was an excellent start to the meeting setting the scene for the remaining talks.

Presentations included leak detection challenges for particle accelerators and the design of leak

detection systems. A particular highlight was the talk by an invited speaker from PTB in Berlin,

Dr Karl Jousten. Karl developed the theme ‘Vacuum metrology for Science and Industry’ by

considering the requirements for leak detection in qualification and certification. At the end of

the meeting a one hour hands on session held in the vacuum exhibition hall allowed delegates to

see the latest leak detectors available on the market and to try them out.

The Functional Thin Films meeting provided a comprehensive mix of presentations on the

production, characterisation and commercial applications of functional coatings. Speakers from a

range of prestigious industrial and academic institutions gave high-quality presentations in

sessions on “Characterisation of Functional Thin Films”, “Industrial Processing”, and “Materials

and Applications”. The subjects covered ranged from high barrier measurement and electrical

characterisation, to applications in OLEDs, flexible electronics and PV, and issues arising from

industrial scale-up and production. The meeting provided a valuable opportunity for the

industrial and academic communities to meet and exchange ideas; and to keep updated on the

key issues facing UK research into Functional Thin Films.

The RGA Calibration in Industry and Research meeting was the 11th meeting organised by

the RGA User Group. The programme focussed on the requirements that users have for

calibrating quadrupole mass spectrometers and developments in providing suitable calibration

techniques including insitu methods.

Page 12 Page 12

Page 13: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

The meeting was pleased to welcome Dr Karl Jousten (PTB, Berlin) and Dr Janez Setina (IMT,

Slovenia) as leading scientists in this field. They covered the topics of ‘Recent steps towards

traceability for partial pressure and outgassing measurements’ and ‘First results of investigations

of metrological characteristics of QMS within EMRP IND12’ (a European project). Other talks

included an overview of the use of RGA at Diamond Light Source, latest results from

comparative tests carried out in ASTeC at Daresbury Laboratory and a closer look at

Quadrupole mass spectrometry in vacuum technology by Dr Jonathan Batey.

Another key element of the symposium again this year was the provision of Vacuum Training.

Demand for basic and advanced training in vacuum science and technology within the UK

continues to be high. This was underlined by the fact that each of the courses offered this year

were oversubscribed before the symposium began. A total of 38 individuals received training

through 3 different training courses over 2 days with a total attendance figure across all courses

of 83. The majority of attendees were vacuum users from UK industry where applications of

vacuum continue to increase. A new training course on ‘Clean Vacuum & UHV’ was offered for

the first time this year and was delivered by Dr Ron Reid (vacuum consultant). The course

proved very popular and has helped many to grasp a better understanding of this increasingly

important area.

Plans are underway to develop an interesting programme for the 5th Vacuum Symposium

UK, those interested in participating or arranging technical programmes are invited to express

their interest through the Vacuum Symposium web site at vacuum-uk.org .

Page 13

Page 14: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 14

Useful Links

http://www.scitech.ac.uk/

http://www.cockcroft.ac.uk/

http://www.adams-institute.ac.uk/

www.diamond.ac.uk

http://www.desy.de/index_eng.html

http://www.linearcollider.org/newsline/

PAB GROUP & UK EVENT S

Accelerators for Future Spallation Sources: ESS, MYRRHA and the ISIS Upgrade

Cockcroft Institute, Daresbury Laboratory, 12 Dec 2013

https://eventbooking.stfc.ac.uk/

IoP CLARA Community Meeting

Cockcroft Institute, Daresbury Laboratory, 13 Jan, 2014

https://eventbooking.stfc.ac.uk/news-events/iop-clara-community-meeting-194

Plasma Wakefield Acceleration

STFC — IOP PAB Group Joint Workshop

Institute of Physics, London, 31 Jan, 2014

You can register for this event at http://www.stfc.ac.uk/ASBworkshop.

For further detail please contact [email protected]

IOP PAB Committee Meeting

Cockcroft Institute, Daresbury Laboratory, 26 Feb. 2014

IOP PAB Annual Meeting

Imperial College, London (date TBD: probably 31 Mar. 2014)

Page 15: IOP PAB GROUP NEWSLETTER

Page 15

INTERNATIONAL CALENDAR

CERN CLIC Workshop 2014

Accelerator, Detector and Physics Studies

CERN, Geneva, 3—7 Feb. 2014

http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=275412

LA3NET 3rd Topical Workshop on Novel Acceleration Techniques

HZDR, Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany, 28-30 Apr. 2014

Registration at CERN Indico

oPAC Workshop on Beam Diagnostics

Vienna, Austria, 8-9 May 2014

Registration at CERN Indico

IPAC 2014

Dresden, Germany, 16-20 June 2014

http://www.ipac14.org/

Free-Electron Lasers, FEL’14

Basel, Switzerland, 25-29 Aug. 2014

http://www.fel2014.ch/

27th Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC’14

ICC, Geneva, Switzerland, 1-5 Sep. 2104

http://linac14.org/

IBIC14

Monterey, California, 15-19 Sep. 2014

(organised by SLAC)

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Phone: 020 7470 4800

Fax: 020 7470 4848

IoP Particle Accelerators and Beams Group

IoP PAB Committee

Chair: Prof. Phil Burrows (Oxford)

Secretary: Dr. Peter Williams (Daresbury)

Treasurer: Dr. Brian McNeil (Strathclyde)

Prof. Allan Gillespie (Dundee); Newsletter

Dr. Hywel Owen (Manchester); Web Manager

Dr. John Thomason (RAL)

Prof. Mike Poole (Daresbury)

Prof. Susan Smith (Daresbury)

Mr. Aled Jones (AWE)

Dr. Riccardo Bartolini (Diamond Light Source & JAI)

Dr. Adina Toader (Manchester)

Dr. Paul Beasley (Siemens); Industrial representative

Dr. Jonathan Smith (Tech-X UK): Industrial representative

James Henderson (Strathclyde); co-opted student

Deadline for submissions to the

next newsletter is

31 March 2014

Disclaimer: This newsletter is also available on the web and in larger print sizes

The contents of this newsletter do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Institute of Physics, except

where explicitly stated.

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Page 16

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