Russell Mammei Colloquium

Fri. Sep. 29 12:30 PM - Fri. Sep. 29 01:20 PM
Location: 3M69 & via Zoom

Lasers, Diamonds, and Neutrons! Oh My!

Come learn how the wear resistant diamond coating on razor blades, in computer hard drives, and even some grocery store checkout scanners is helping fundamental physics experiments with neutrons.  This coating, diamond-like-carbon (DLC), excels at reflecting and preserving the polarization of low energy neutrons called ultracold neutrons (UCN).  UCN are used at several facilities around the world to perform fundamental physics measurements such as: the neutron lifetime, neutron beta decay correlation parameters, the neutron electric dipole moment, and even modifications to Newtonian gravity.  A new UCN facility is being built at TRIUMF, Canada’s Particle Accelerator Center, which aims to be the world’s leader in UCN production.  To transport these record number of neutrons to the various UCN experiments, DLC coated UCN guides will be employed.  These guides will be produced in the UCN Guide Coating Facility right here in the physics department at UW.  Here the light from a pulsed excimer laser is focused onto a graphite target creating a plasma explosion of the graphite material.  The plasma is then allowed to coat the UCN guides and other machined surfaces. This process is called pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and is used in a variety of material science and industrial settings to make thin films.  In this talk, I will introduce ultracold neutrons, describe the UCN facility at TRIUMF, and showcase the Guide Coating Facility at UW and its capabilities.

For a zoom invitation to this event, please email: an.wiebe@uwinnipeg.ca