Accomplishments/Responsibilities

After the successful completion of my qualifying examinations in physics, mathematics and a foreign language (German), I wrote my doctoral dissertation in ultraviolet astronomy. The data from a red giant star were telemetered back to the ground from a rocket payload that my colleagues and I designed, built, and calibrated. This was a very exciting time, and provided valuable insight into medium scale science at the university level.

During my post-doctoral appointment I investigated fluorescence of biological molecules in the transmission electron microscope. These three years spent in a biology department served to considerably broaden the techniques of which I have knowledge. This has proven to be valuable in my subsequent work.

At Brookhaven National Laboratory I was responsible for the systems design of large monochromator systems that were used with the National Synchrotron Light Source. Close interaction was required with other physicists, draftsmen, engineers, outside contractors and project management.

At Bausch and Lomb/Milton Roy I was responsible for the total optical capability for our division. Our products involved optical systems centered on diffraction gratings. My department was responsible for the development of new ways to make gratings by both ruling and laser holographic photolithography. In addition, my department provided technical assistance for the replication of gratings.

The gratings were the basis of optical systems for microprocessor-controlled instruments that had a sales volume of approximately twenty million dollars per year. My department provided the optical design, tolerancing, and optically related manufacturing support for these instruments. This required that we interact productively with electrical, mechanical, and quality engineers from product design to product introduction. These duties required planning for personnel, as well as capital and material spending.

At Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory I assumed technical and fiscal responsibility for the construction of a high-resolution vacuum ultraviolet beamline at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. Timely technical decisions and reasonable fiscal controls completed this $2M project on time and on budget. This beamline has become the model and prototype for the undulator beamlines for the Advanced Light Source (ALS). In April '89, I moved to the ALS Construction Project, where I had the responsibility for the manufacture and testing of the optical components for the ALS. There was no source in industry for the necessary water-cooled optical components. In order to make these optics available, I made original contributions to the metrology of synchrotron optics at the 0.1 arc second slope error level, and have implemented a program to place this metrology in the shops of optical vendors. I won both LBL's and the Federal Laboratory Consortium's Awards for excellence in technology transfer for this developmental work. For these achievements I received an outstanding performance award from the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division for 1992.

My developments in optical metrology and the finishing of Electroless Nickel coated GlidcopTM copper water-cooled mirrors and gratings have continued to have a major impact on the success of the ALS. The Long Trace Profiler developed in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Continental Optical continues to qualify all optics installed at the ALS, including a series of developmental adaptive optics that have achieved sub-micron focusing of X-ray beams. In Sync Optics of Albuquerque NM continues as a major supplier of optics to the synchrotron community, and as a successor to Photon Sciences, and to Tucson Optical Research in the field. I had a major role in converting this business from a one of a kind internally cooled silicon technology to an ongoing business. The water-cooled diffraction gratings for the initial beamlines at the ALS and several other Synchrotrons were supplied by a large order that I put together with Hughes Aircraft of El Segundo, CA. One of these gratings achieved a resolving power of 60,000 at 400 eV, better than any other grazing incidence instrument had ever achieved. This would not have been possible without the simultaneous achievement of low slope error and surface microroughness achieved by my developmental program. This multi-year development effort required successful interaction and collaboration with all levels of personnel from Laboratory Director to Optical Polisher to engineer to technician.

I continued my work at the ALS by assuming the role of Project Manager for the Elliptical Wiggler Beamline Project and the ALS Vacuum Coater. Since 1995 I have taken primary responsibility for the design, and construction of the Beamline 1.4 complex, and entered a new field, for me, of FTIR Microscopy. A single front end connected to the storage ring supplies light to three end stations. One FTIR optical bench supplies light to an IR microscope that focuses the diffraction limited mid-IR light onto the sample. For samples less than 75 microns in size this microscope provides on the order of 200 times more flux on the sample as a conventional FTIR microscope. This beamline is one of the most productive at the ALS, as witnessed by refereed publications, and abstracts in the ALS compendium. A second step scan vacuum FTIR instrument is available for Far-IR experiments.

I have begun a successful collaboration with one of the users of our IR microscopy line, Hoi-Ying Holman, and my colleague in the IR work, Mike Martin. We have applied the FTIR microscopy to bioremediation of chromium, demonstrating definitively the bioactivity of specific bacteria to reduce toxic chromium six to much less toxic chromium three. We were also the first to identify chromium five as an intermediate product. We have also begun to apply the technique to individual living cells. We have demonstrated that Synchrotron-based FTIR microscopy can detect the effect of Dioxin on a single cell at environmentally relevant concentrations. This work has resulted in the award of an independent grant for the salary of our user, with capital money for a second FTIR bench and microscope. My IR beamline work resulted in my second outstanding performanceaward at LBL in Feb. 2000.

During 1999-2000 I assumed the additional responsibility for the Undulator Beamline complex 9.0. Three end stations for chemical dynamics studies are connected to the undulator. In collaboration with the manufacturer McPherson Instruments I repaired the laser angle measurement in the grating drive mechanism, and reestablished good focus in the chamber of the 9.0.2.2 end station. Repair of the laser angle system required a completely new alignment procedure, which I designed and carried out.

The successful construction of the IR beamline required interaction with the accelerator physicists, and the reduction of numerous sources of noise both on the electron beam and the beamline itself. After exhausting all of the cost effective passive remediation methods we implemented an active optic feedback system on the IR beam with assistance from LLNL. Through our successful application for LDRD (Laboratory Directed Research and Development) funding to investigate coherent Far-IR emission both from micro-bunching of the ALS electron bunches, and from the femto-second slicing of the electron bunch by the group led by Robert Schoenlein. I have, with Mike Martin, organized three workshops at LBL to assess the scientific case for a separate Far-IR storage ring at LBL. This LDRD project was renewed for a second year as a strategic LDRD, and has been added to the 5 year plan for the ALS. We have observed super-radiant emission at the ALS, at a bending magnet at the Jefferson Laboratory in Virginia, and continuous super-radiant emission at BESSY in Berlin. This project may well mature into a new IR ring at the ALS facility which would bring in approximately $20M in funding to LBNL, and provide the most intense source of THz radiation in the world.