Neutron scattering research has improved the quality of many everyday items: Shatter-proof windshields, credit cards, pocket calculators, airplanes, compact discs, and magnetic storage tapes are just some examples.
Along the Loop Road at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the roar of falling water and a refreshing mist filled the air after six solid weeks of California rain. But the water cascading down the inside of Campus Cooling Tower 101, and landing in a frothy pool, is hardly scenic.
Over a half-eaten burrito or a bowl of spaghetti, Sam Ehrenstein ponders the unanswered questions of fundamental physics. Yet Sam is no experimental physicist or postdoc brooding over his data. Not yet, anyway.
After undergoing a buffered chemical polishing (BCP) treatment at Cornell University, the first US-processed and tested International Linear Collider superconducting cavity achieved a milestone accelerating gradient of 26 MV/m (megavolts per meter)–surpassing the first gradient goal (25 MV/m).
Welcome to SLAC's End Station B, where work on the International Linear Collider (ILC) will help shape the future of particle physics–although some inhabitants don't seem to give a hoot.
Clouds of electrons could block the view of new discoveries at the proposed ILC, a multi-billion-dollar particle collider. Eliminating those clouds is critical to the prspects for the machine's success.