Research Areas
Advanced Technology R&D
In order to solve the great mysteries about the fundamental laws of nature, scientists require new tools, technologies and techniques that enable them to see more deeply into the quantum universe than they ever have before.
By fostering world-leading research, the technologies and techniques developed in the Advanced Technology R&D program result in the next generation of scientific instruments with potential applications across the DOE laboratory complex and in such areas as material science, homeland security, and medicine.
The Advanced Technology R&D program provides the technologies needed to design and build the accelerator and detector facilities that are essential for making new discoveries in high energy physics. These efforts not only include R&D to bring new accelerator and detector concepts to the stage where they can be considered for new or existing facilities, but also advancement of the basic sciences underlying the technology.
One area of active R&D focuses on the technology needed for the proposed International Linear Collider. This next-generation accelerator will use superconducting radiofrequency technology to smash electrons and their opposites, positrons, at high energies. For the majority of new accelerator-based projects, SCRF has become the technology of choice because of its efficient ability to conduct electric current with almost no loss of energy. The pursuit of alternate acceleration techniques is also an intense area of study. Plasma wakefield acceleration, for example, holds promise for building smaller yet more powerful accelerators.
Supporting Information
Future Acceleration
Camille Ginsburg’s job is to look to the future – and make sure Fermilab has the right tools to reach it.
As project scientist for the Fermilab superconducting radiofrequency cavity vertical test facility, Ginsburg searches for ways to improve cavities built to accelerate charged particles in future accelerators.
“I think superconducting radiofrequency particle acceleration is an important technology,” Ginsburg said. “For future projects at Fermilab, it seems likely that it will play a critical role.”
Ginsburg came to Fermilab in 2005 after working at the University of Wisconsin - Madison on the CDF experiment at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider.
At Fermilab, Ginsburg coordinates a team that devises ways to clean, process and test the quality of cavities. She is working to produce cavities that can reliably impart 35 mega-electronvolts of energy to a particle in one meter. Thousands of these cavities would be needed for future accelerators, so industrializing the production is vital to using them successfully.
The perfect cavity must be made of high quality niobium material polished to a mirror-smooth finish, including the welded joints in the cavities, she said. It must also be free of dust or contaminants which can be introduced during assembly.
So far laboratories around the world have identified about two dozen 9-cell cavities that can perform at the required level.
Ginsburg earned her Ph.D. in physics at Northwestern University and was also a research associate at Ohio State University.
