Research

My primary research interests are in fusion plasmas. Nuclear fusion is the energy source that powers the sun. The goal of our research is to harness the same energy to generate electricity on earth. Nuclear fusion reactions take place at high temperatures (100 million degrees) which are only obtained in a fourth state of matter known as a plasma. The research is funded by the US Dept. of Energy and their web site has a number of links to fusion and plasma information.

My research at RPI is done in the Plasma Dynamics Lab with Profs. Ken Connor and Paul Schoch. Our group has specialized in a diagnostic tool known as a heavy ion beam probe or HIBP for short. The HIBP concept was first developed by Buzz Jobes and Bob Hickok. Bob is an RPI Professor Emeritus.

Our group has two major projects. The first is the development of techniques using the HIBP to measure fluctuations in plasma density, electric field, and magnetic field at RF frequencies (e.g. 13.56 MHz). Funding started on this project during Spring 1999. We are building a helicon plasma to use as a target plasma. Helicons are RF heated plasma that can achieve a high density in a relatively cold (50,000 degrees C) plasma. They have potential applications in semiconductor and surface processing. We are also setting up an HIBP diagnostic to operate with the plasma. I am the coordinator for this project.

The second project is the installation of one of our HIBP diagnostics on the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) experiment at the University of Wisconsin. MST is a reversed field pinch and this will be the first HIBP experiment on this type of plasma. This project is coordinated by Ken Connor and Paul Schoch.

Spring 2000 Leave of Absence

I am on leave of absence during the Spring 2000 semester. I am working at the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) near Nagoya, Japan. The largest stellarator experiment in the world, the Large Helical Device (LHD) is at this Institute. (A stellarator is a way to confine the plasma with a magnetic field). In addition, there is a smaller stellarator, the Compact Helical System (CHS) that is being rebuilt after being moved from the Institute's former site. I will be working with a research group here that has also been working on HIBP diagnostics for 20 years. The project I will spend the most time on is the development and testing of the LHD HIBP diagnostic. It is designed to operate with 6 MeV ions, which is 3x the energy of the largest system we have built at RPI. In addition, I will spend some time helping to re-install the CHS HIBP experiment. I worked on this experiment during a previous 1 year stay at NIFS.

Courses and Teaching

Fields and Waves I - ECSE 2100
This was my primary teaching assignment for a number of semesters. It is generally taken by electrical engineering juniors along with some electric power students and computer and systems engineers. I developed a studio version of the course which is given in JEC 4107, the Instrumentation Studio.

Plasma courses
There is usually one plasma course taught per semester and I've been involved with all of them at one point or another. Most recently, I taught Plasma Engineering, taken by seniors and grad students during Spring and Fall 1999. The other plasma courses are all graduate level courses although they are open to undergrads with the right background. During Spring 2000, we've arranged for our plasma students to take one of the graduate courses, Plasma Dynamics I, online from Prof. Dave Hwang of UC Davis.

Links

Plasma Lab personnel pages
• Prof. Ken Connor
• Dr. Diane Demers, postdoc
• Uday Shah, grad student
• Jianxin Lei, grad student

Some former students
• Fred Mull
• John Heard

Some more plasma physics sites
• The National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan where I have been a visiting scientist.
• The Princeton Plasma Physics Lab - largest fusion plasma lab in the US
• Helicon plasma sites at the Australian National University and the University of Canberra.

Other sites
• Capital Region of NY
• The Japan Times
• It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.