News Items August 2010

31 August 2010

Nuffield Students Demonstrate the Phenomenon of Superconductivity Two AS level summer students,  Adam McAteer (Carmel College, St. Helens) and Keir Pearson (King’s College Macclesfield), spent 4 weeks in August at the Daresbury Laboratory to get an insight into conducting real life physics experiments. …read more below

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Two AS level summer students,  Adam McAteer (Carmel College, St. Helens) and Keir Pearson (King’s College Macclesfield), spent 4 weeks in August at the Daresbury Laboratory to get an insight into conducting real life physics experiments. Their visit was supported through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths) bursaries from Nuffield foundation.   They students were assigned a project to install and commission a pulse tube cryocooler for developing an experimental facility for the laboratory to conduct small experiments at low temperatures down to 4K.  The enthusiastic students not only completed the project successfully in time but also made it exciting by demonstrating the phenomenon of superconductivity by measuring the resistance of a NbTi filament through the superconducting transition. The resistance dropped to zero below the transition temperature, which was found to be close to 9 K. (See figure below)
Many thanks to Adam and Keir, their efforts have now provided a new experimental tool to the laboratory where small components can be characterised at cryogenic temperatures in a very short period of time.[/toggle_item]
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27 August 2010

Thousands of turns in EMMA

I’m delighted to inform you that during the latest EMMA commissioning run earlier this week further significant milestones have been achieved.
Circulating beams with more than a thousand turns have been achieved and commissioning of the RF system is also well advanced.
The next EMMA operating  period starts on 30th August when work resumes to demonstrate evidence of acceleration and transverse stability with resonance crossing, which are major goals for this novel particle accelerator.

Neil Bliss
EMMA Project Manager


16 August 2010

1st Beam Steered Around a Non Scaling FFAG Ring
On Monday 16th August at 1:03 am the 1st electron beam was successfully steered around the total circumference of the EMMA ring.  Two complete turns were achieved, with beam detected on the third turn before the accelerator was switched off for the night at just after 3am.
read more below

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Director’s message on achieving an EMMA Milestone

A big congratulations to the team on this remarkable achievement, a significant milestone!  The development of a non-scaling FFAG in the UK is unique in the world today. This novel device has the promise of being a major component in future grand instruments of science probing the structure and function of matter as well as very many societal applications in health and energy! I wish you further success in keeping the momentum in commissioning its radio-frequency system and then the demonstration of the EMMA with its full scope!

Onwards and upwards!
Swapan Chattopadhyay

On Monday 16th August at 1:03 am the 1st electron beam was successfully steered around the total circumference of the EMMA ring.  Two complete turns were achieved, with beam detected on the third turn before the accelerator was switched off for the night at just after 3am.

This is the 1st beam steered around a non scaling FFAG ring and a significant milestone for the CONFORM project and our international collaborators. The next steps, starting later this week will be the commissioning of the radio-frequency system followed by  the world’s 1st demonstration of the new mode of acceleration that EMMA is designed to demonstrate. This novel accelerator concept could be applied to a range of applications including  cancer therapy, safe clean energy and muon acceleration for fundamental physics.

I would like to emphasis what a fantastic achievement this is for the team and I would like to all thank all those who have put in a supreme effort over this holiday period to ensure this success.

Susan Smith

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