2014 Science & Technology Award Recipients
July 30, 2014
Science and Technology Awards are presented to recognize distinguished contributions to the science and technology objectives of the Laboratory over one or more years. The 2014 Science and Technology Award recipients are:
John Smedley • Physicist • Instrumentation Division
John Smedley is an internationally recognized leader in the development of high efficiency photocathodes. He pushes the state-of-the-art to all new levels. Photocathodes designed by John and his colleagues in our Instrumentation Division profoundly impact research at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and next generation light sources, including the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). Photocathodes are critical components of electron injectors used for energy recovery linacs, free electron lasers, and even for the cooling of ion beams—an exciting prospect for future programs at RHIC, including the development of an electron-ion collider.
John is also pioneering the use of diamond as an x-ray sensor. John proved that his diamond sensors can measure intense x-ray beams with much greater accuracy and stability than existing devices, locating the center of an x-ray beam to within a fraction of one micrometer. This work will likely have a major impact on the utilization of NSLS-II and on a range of commercial applications.
John takes full advantage of Brookhaven’s facilities—beyond doing important foundational work to enhance them—including the use of Center for Functional Nanomaterials instruments and 20 NSLS beamlines to characterize both photocathodes and diamond sensors.
Dejan Trbojevic • Senior Physicist • Collider-Accelerator Department
Dejan Trbojevic is a world-renowned expert in the field of innovative accelerator design. The breadth of this expertise extends from creative design of lattices for future electron-hadron colliders to practical aspects of hadron accelerators and gantries for cancer therapy.
Dejan is receiving the Science & Technology Award for his groundbreaking achievement in developing a novel accelerator principle—the non-scaling fixed field alternating gradient—and applying it to advance important applications. These include a possible future electron-ion collider proposed to be built upon the infrastructure of our Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, dubbed eRHIC, and medical accelerators being designed to deliver ion beams for improved cancer therapy. This innovative design allowed a very significant reduction in the cost and a substantial improvement in the capabilities of the current proposed design for eRHIC.
In addition, Dejan developed a unique optics system to focus beams at the interaction region of eRHIC. This innovation would boost eRHIC’s luminosity—its collision rate—10-fold, significantly increasing scientists’ ability to probe quarks and gluons, the building blocks of visible matter.
Meet the others recognized during the 2014 employee awards ceremony.
2014-5085 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
