SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory


Showing 1-9 of 9 Results

  • Martin Breidenbach

    Martin Breidenbach

    Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Emeritus

    BioI have worked for more than 45 years in experimental particle physics, often in developing new kinds of electronics and instruments critical to the detectors that enable the physics experiments of interest. In 1965 through 1971, I was involved in the electron scattering program at SLAC. The deep inelastic experiments that discovered the scaling and point like structure in the nucleon, later interpreted as quarks, was my Ph.D. thesis. I then spent a year at CERN, mostly doing an experiment on minimum bias behavior of proton-proton scattering at the newly operating Intersecting Storage Rings. Despite intentions to stay longer at CERN, I was persuaded by Professor Richter to return to SLAC and join his SPEAR storage ring group. In the 1974 “November Revolution”, we discovered the  and ’ particles, soon interpreted as bound states of charm-anti-charm quarks, which caused essentially complete acceptance of the quark model as real. Another critical discovery at SPEAR was the  lepton, leading to the third family of the Standard Model.

    Subsequently Professor Charles Baltay and I were co-spokesmen of the SLD, a comprehensive large detector for the SLAC Linear Collider (SLC), where we did Z physics, particularly polarization asymmetries possible because of the SLC polarized electron beam which led to a (correct) prediction of the Higgs mass, and precision b physics with a 300 MPixel CCD vertex detector.

    I am now involved in the design of a detector for the International Linear Collider which may be built in Japan, which has led to substantial involvement in Si detector sensors and associated readout ASIC’s. I believe we have developed the first wafer scale sensors with on sensor traces leading to a relative small area “readout system on a chip” that delivers processed digital signals to a DAQ.

    I also work on a search for neutrinoless double beta decay (02) in 136 Xe. The 02 experiment utilizes a liquid xenon TPC requiring ultra-low background materials, techniques, and locations, which was an education into rather different experimental techniques from collider detectors.

    I am working on a new concept for an e+e- linear collider called C^3 for the Cool Copper Collider. The Cool Copper Collider (C3) is an advanced concept for a high energy e+e- linear collider. It is based on a new SLAC technology that dramatically improves efficiency and breakdown rate. C3 uses distributed power to each cavity from a common RF manifold and operates at cryogenic temperatures (LN2, ~80K). This makes it robust at high gradient: 120~MeV/m.

    C3 is a promising option for a next-generation e+e- collider. It has the potential to reach energies of up to 1 TeV, which would allow it to study the properties of particles that are difficult to access with current experiments. C3 is also relatively affordable, which makes it a more viable option than some of the other proposed linear colliders.

    Finally, these recent experiences have led to exploratory collaborative efforts in neuroscience, where we believe our SLAC expertise in sensors and electronics could be rather synergistic with Stanford efforts in tACs and in neural recording probes.

  • Stanley Brodsky

    Stanley Brodsky

    Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Emeritus

    BioRecipient of the Watkins Physics Award and Visiting Professorship by the Watkins Foundations at Wichita State University in November, 2017.
    Awarded the International Pomeranchuk Prize for 2015.
    The Pomeranchuk Prize is a major international award for theoretical physics, awarded annually since 1998 by the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP)
    from Moscow to one international scientist and one Russian scientist, It is named after Russian physicist Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk, who together with Lev Landau,
    established the Theoretical Physics Department of the Institute. The Laureates for 2015 were Professor Victor Fadin and myself.
    Recipient of the 2007 J. J. Sakurai Prize in Theoretical Physics, awarded by the American Physical Society.
    Honorary degree of doctor scientiarum honoris causa (dr.scient.h.c.) from Southern Denmark University
    Alexander von Humboldt Distinguished U.S. Senior Scientist Award in 1987
    Chair of the Hadron Physics Topical Physics Group (GHP) of the American Physical Society, 2010.

  • Axel Brunger

    Axel Brunger

    Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, of Neurology, of Photon Science and, by courtesy, of Structural Biology

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOne of Axel Brunger's major goals is to decipher the molecular mechanisms of synaptic neurotransmitter release by conducting imaging and single-molecule/particle reconstitution experiments, combined with near-atomic resolution structural studies of the synaptic vesicle fusion machinery.

  • Philip Bucksbaum

    Philip Bucksbaum

    Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and Professor of Photon Science, of Applied Physics and of Physics

    BioPhil Bucksbaum holds the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Chair in Natural Science at Stanford University, with appointments in Physics, Applied Physics, and in Photon Science at SLAC. He conducts his research in the Stanford PULSE Institute (https://web.stanford.edu/~phbuck). He and his wife Roberta Morris live in Menlo Park, California. Their grown daughter lives in Toronto.

    Bucksbaum was born and raised in Iowa, and graduated from Harvard in 1975. He attended U.C. Berkeley on a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and received his Ph.D. in 1980 for atomic parity violation experiments under Professor Eugene Commins, with whom he also has co-authored a textbook, “Weak Interactions of Leptons and Quarks.” In 1981 he joined Bell Laboratories, where he pursued new applications of ultrafast coherent radiation from terahertz to vacuum ultraviolet, including time-resolved VUV ARPES, and strong-field laser-atom physics.

    He joined the University of Michigan in 1990 and stayed for sixteen years, becoming Otto Laporte Collegiate Professor and then Peter Franken University Professor. He was founding Director of FOCUS, a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center, where he pioneered research using ultrafast lasers to control quantum systems. He also launched the first experiments in ultrafast x-ray science at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab. In 2006 Bucksbaum moved to Stanford and SLAC, and organized the PULSE Institute to develop research utilizing the world’s first hard x-ray free-electron laser, LCLS. In addition to directing PULSE, he has previously served as Department Chair of Photon Science and Division Director for Chemical Science at SLAC. His current research is in laser interrogation of atoms and molecules to explore and image structure and dynamics on the femtosecond scale. He currently has more than 250 publications.

    Bucksbaum is a Fellow of the APS and the Optical Society, and has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has held Guggenheim and Miller Fellowships, and received the Norman F. Ramsey Prize of the American Physical Society for his work in ultrafast and strong-field atomic and molecular physics. He served as the Optical Society President in 2014, and also served as the President of the American Physical Society in 2020. He has led or participated in many professional service activities, including NAS studies, national and international boards, initiatives, lectureships and editorships.

  • Robert Byer

    Robert Byer

    William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor, Emeritus

    BioRobert L. Byer has served as President of The American Physical Society, of the Optical Society of America and of the IEEE LEOS. He has served as Vice Provost and Dean of Research at Stanford. He has been Chair of the Department of Applied Physics, Director of the Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory and Director of the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory. He is a founding member of the California Council on Science and Technology and served as Chair from 1995-1999. He was a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board from 2002-2006 and has been a member of the National Ignition Facility since 2000.

    Robert L. Byer has conducted research and taught classes in lasers and nonlinear optics at Stanford University since 1969. He has made extraordinary contributions to laser science and technology including the demonstration of the first tunable visible parametric oscillator, the development of the Q-switched unstable resonator Nd:YAG laser, remote sensing using tunable infrared sources and precision spectroscopy using Coherent Anti Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS). Current research includes precision laser measurements in support of the detection of gravitational waves and laser “Accelerator on a chip”.