Departmental news

Tom Orton, Research Development Engineer in the Department of Physics received the Warwick Technician Commitment Award for Outstanding Achievement. Tom was one of two recipients of these inaugural awards, which received over 40 nominations campus wide. Tom had a number of nominations for his “exceptional ability as an outstanding technician” and his job “providing a sustainable, environmentally friendly and financially valuable resource” through the liquid helium recovery system. Many congratulations Tom and thank you for your extraordinary efforts!

The Warwick Technician Commitment Award for Outstanding Achievement celebrates the fantastic work our technical staff do across research, teaching and within our infrastructure, without which Warwick would not operate. Any member of staff or student to nominate a technical member of staff for achievements big or small, or to celebrate work that is unsung but still immensely important. Nominations are always open, with quarterly panels and award presentations.

Find out more about the Warwick Technician Commitment Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Congratulations to Dr Matthew Pearce who has been awarded the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine Thesis Award. Matthew was awarded this for his thesis titled “Applied-magnetic-field studies of f-electron materials."

Matthew did his undergraduate degree at Warwick, before continuing to do his PhD in the Superconductivity and Magnetism Group under the supervision of Paul Goddard. During his PhD he used a variety of experimental techniques including magnetometry (torque, SQUID, VSM and pulsed-field compensated coil), electrical transport (traditional 4-wire and PDO), heat capacity and x-ray scattering. Matthew performed measurements at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, utilising both the in-house facilities in the laboratories at Warwick, as well as international high-field user facilities – where materials can be studied in some of the highest magnetic fields on earth.

Matthew's research focussed in part on Ho₂Ir₂O₇, which belongs to a class of highly frustrated magnetic systems known as spin-ices, which are famous for hosting magnetic monopole quasiparticles. Matthew and his collaborators found that not only do measurements of the electrical resistance in these systems act as an indicator for the density of magnetic monopoles, but also that, mediated by the monopoles on the Ho sublattice, an applied magnetic field is able to manipulate the antiferromagnetic Ir domains, with potential applications to areas such as spintronics. He also studied the compound CeOs₄Sb₁₂, which had previously been found to undergo a valence transition. This is a transition where f electrons undergo a transformation from quasi-localised to itinerant with perhaps the most dramatic example being that of elemental Ce, which is accompanied by a volume collapse often quoted to be as large as 15 %. Matthew and his collaborators mapped out the phase boundary of this transition which exhibited an extremely unusual shape, owing to the influence of locally varying strain within the sample and quantum fluctuations.

Since completing his PhD he has been working at the University of Oxford with Radu Coldea studying quantum magnetism.

Congratulations to Joe Cregeen who has won the Postgraduates who teach award in the Science, Engineering & Medicine (SEM) category.

Find out more.

Congratulations to Dr Menglin Xu who has been awarded the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine Post Doctoral Prize in Physics. Menglin was awarded this for their research on “First measurement of the Z→μ+μ− angular coefficients in the forward region of pp collisions at √s=13 TeV.

Congratulations to Dr Dmitrii Kolotkov who has been awarded the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine Post Doctoral Prize in Physics. Dmitrii was awarded this for his work on 'Coronal seismology by slow waves in non-adiabatic conditions', doi: 10.3389/fspas.2022.1073664

I have to report the very sad news that Professor John Forty, the founding professor of the Department of Physics, passed away on Sunday 14th May aged 94.

The leading position that the Department holds today is due, in no small measure, to the vision and leadership that John showed in setting up the Department in the 1960s, from his choice of staff and their research areas to the design of a building that has remained "fit for purpose" for many decades, despite the many changes in use that have occurred.

More information will be provided when available.

Mark Newton
Head of Department

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.”

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

Elizabeth who works in the Ultrasound Group presented an update of her results to the NDA and the wider nuclear industry, showing how the pressure inside a welded steel container could be measured using non-contact acoustic transducers to excite and detect the natural resonant modes of the container via the electromagnetic Lorentz mechanism. The pressure inside the containers can increase due to radioactive decays and chemical reactions of the material inside the sealed containers, and it is important to be able to measure if the pressure becomes too high. Using a combination of Finite Element (FE) modelling, optical vibrometer and EMAT measurements, Elizabeth has proved that the resonant modes that she is experimentally measuring, correspond exactly to those predicted by the FE models, and that generally the frequency of those modes increase as pressure inside the container increases. Elizabeth plans to develop a prototype system for trials in the nuclear industry, under an EPSRC IAA project that she will start later this year.

Watch a video presentation of Elizabeth's work.

Launched in 2015, the XMaS Scientist Experience is a nationwide opportunity for any Year 12 UK Physics students who identify as female to join us on an all-expenses-paid 4-day trip to the ESRF in Grenoble, France at the beginning of July 2023. Our aim is to encourage students to consider science careers, foster a sense of community and encourage self-belief.

Find out more about the experience.

Watch the video that was made by the ESRF team in July 2017.