CMP presentations at the International Symposium on Molecular Beams
Two members of the Condensed Matter Physics cluster, Maks Roman and Kathy Wu, recently presented their work at the 30th International Symposium on Molecular Beams (ISMB) conference held in Crete.
Kathy was invited to give a ‘Hot Topic’ talk on research she has been conducting as part of her PhD project, entitled “Creating state- and velocity-selected molecular beams of pure radicals”. Maks presented a poster on his postdoctoral project, where he is studying the “Reaction dynamics of state- and speed-selected radicals with trapped ions”.
Maks and Kathy have been working together to characterize and optimize a new magnetic guide instrument. They have made amazing progress on what is a very technically challenging project. Over the course of just a few months, Maks and Kathy succeeded in using the guide to exert control over the properties of beams of oxygen molecules—with the Halbach arrays (permanent magnets in a hexapolar configuration) in the guide preferentially focusing O2 molecules in selected quantum states into the detection region. These measurements were initially intended to be preliminary experiments to test the performance of the pulsed valve system. Their results with the magnetic guide were so interesting that Maks and Kathy decided to expand the project—yielding the fabulous findings that they presented at the ISMB meeting. Alongside Brianna Heazlewood, they will shortly be preparing the work for publication.