Dept News

Congratulations to Dr Karolos Potamianos who has been awarded £287,845 from Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for a research project titled 'Expanding the timing frontier: precision timing for particle tracking and identification.'

The funding will permit the procurement of a 12 GHz signal generator, a fast oscilloscope (<8ps per sample), and a logic analyser. These will enable the proper characterisation of ultra-fast silicon detectors and associated readout at realistic operating conditions, in particular enabling precise measurements of their (ultra-fast) response signals.

The research will be led by Dr Karolos Potamianos. He said,

"The use of fast silicon in collider detectors offers many new opportunities, as high-precision timing information enables distinguish between collisions occurring very close in space but well-separated in time. This will greatly help mitigate the effect of overlapping proton-proton interactions (pileup) at the High-Luminosity LHC. It is thus essential that we can properly characterise these detectors, which the procured equipment will enable. However, challenges such as ensuring proper operation of the detectors in a tough radiation environment and that sufficient bandwidth is available to transfer data out of the detector remain to make these detectors a reality at the LHC.”

Undergraduate student, Phoebe Ryder attended the World Congress on Undergraduate Research (WorldCUR) which took place at the University of Warwick campus in early April. The WorldCUR brings together the world's best undergraduate researchers to focus on some of the most significant challenges facing the global community. The students attending are invited to share their research, discuss global issues, and create or strengthen international research partnerships.

Phoebe, a third year Physics with Astrophysics student, presented her poster on the characterisation of a binary star system that was identified as a possible supernova progenitor, with the aim of finding out whether the system had sufficient combined mass to go supernova. She said,

"It was an amazing opportunity to meet students from around the globe. There was a vast range of research being showcased and it was really inspiring and encouraging to hear others at the same educational stage to myself talk so passionately about their own research. Everyone I met was really supportive and I feel I have gained a lot of confidence in my presentation skills from the experience. Also, presenting my research to people with a wide range of previous knowledge on astrophysics, but the same enthusiasm to learn, allowed me to practice presenting to many different types of audiences.

I have learned so much from all the other delegates, about their own research and their presentation styles and techniques. I also learnt a lot from the keynote speaker, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter's presentation. He was sharing advice on how best to communicate your research to a variety of audiences, particularly his thoughts on how to simplify your research to convey the gist without losing accuracy."

STEM for Britain is a major scientific poster competition and exhibition with an aim to give members of both Houses of Parliament an insight into the outstanding research work being undertaken in UK universities by early career researchers and was held at the House of Commons on Monday 6th March, 2023. Dr Lauren DoyleLink opens in a new window was selected as a finalist within the Physics category, to represent her research on stellar flares from solar-type and low mass stars where she found these events don’t correlate with starspots like they do on the Sun. Overall, this suggests other stars have much more complex surfaces compared to the Sun which posses questions when thinking about the habitability of other planets. The event was attended by people from across the UK with representation from many institutions and organisations including The Institute of Physics and Warwick. During the event, Lauren got the opportunity to chat to lots of researchers across Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry about their research, with lots of interest from the judges about her own research. Although Lauren didn't place in the competition she told us:

"Despite this, I am really glad I went as it was an amazing experience where I was one of 20 finalists selected to represent Physics research in the UK. I was extremely proud to represent the Physics department at Warwick University and hope that others from the department will apply to attend next year."

Congratulations to Lauren for representing the department and her research at the event.

Find out more about STEM for Britain.Link opens in a new window

On Thursday 9 February, Professor Stuart Croft (Vice-Chancellor) visited the department to present a Warwick wow award to Ally Caldecote (Outreach Officer) and Tishtrya Mehta (post-doctoral researcher) for their continuous hard work and dedication to the annual Christmas Lectures. The Christmas Lectures take place in early December at Warwick Arts Centre, and have been running for 12 years. To date, over 17,000 people have attended.

We spoke to Ally, founder of the Christmas Lectures who said:

"It is an honour to see the appreciation for the Christmas Lectures! They are a labour of love each year with lots of different people coming together to showcase fantastic science and scientists. As a physics department we are deeply committed to sharing what we do with as many as possible and if we can do it wearing Christmas jumpers and Santa hats then that's just a bonus!"

Alongside Ally, Tishtrya plays a pivotal part in the Christmas lectures each year. She said:

"Being a part of the Christmas Lectures Team has been such a highlight of my time at Warwick - I've loved watching the most incredible shows put together by passionate and talented scientists and technicians and learning about the most bizarre and wonderful research, such as the secret life of Brussels sprouts!

It's a joy to see the lectures being awarded and to hear the well earned praise for Ally Caldecote and Paul Warwick (China Plate Theatre) who have been indispensable in making the lectures so full of life and loved by so many."

The wow award celebrates amazing work, projects, and achievements at the University.

Find out more about the university award and watch the video.Link opens in a new window