Physics Department News
Neutrinos - faster than light?
On Tuesday 6th December the Physics department held a Christmas Lecture for the public. Teachers, school children and individuals interested in physics made up the 160 people who were excited to hear Daniel Scully talk about his research into neutrinos. Addressing a packed lecture theatre, he explained what different neutrino experiments look for, and the results from CERN that caught the headlines around the world. Together they considered the staggering implications if these results were confirmed and exactly why they caused such a sensation.
The talk was very enthusiastically received with 30 peopple queuing to ask Daniel questions at the end.
The feedback from the public was overwhelmingly positive, with Daniel's excellent communication skills and infectous enthusiasm, inspiring the audience. "Terrific" and "superb" were amongst the feedback.
Daniel has been inundated with requests to speak at further events, such as Cafe Scientifique, local schools and amateur astronomy groups.
If you missed Daniel's talk, you can watch it .
£900k Grant Awards - September 2011
September was another good month with awards of nearly £1m, Dominated by a £700k spintronics grant led by David Leadley. Steve Dixon, Julie Stunton Tony Arber, Rudolf Romer also contributed:
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David Leadley £698,526 EPSRC
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Spintronic device physics in Si/Ge Heterostructures. |
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Tony Arber £71,694 AWE
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PhD Studentship: A multi-material MHD ALE code |
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Steve Dixon £60,000 Rolls Royce plc.
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Collaboration Agreement for EMATs for non-contact NDE of austenitic steel project |
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Julie Staunton £27,000 European THermodynamics Ltd.
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Studentship agreement for Theoretical Modelling of the Electrocalorifc Effect in Relaxor Ferroelectric Films project |
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Research gives crystal clear temperature readings from toughest environments
Researchers at the 神马福利影片 and Oxford University have developed a form of crystal that can deliver highly accurate temperature readings, down to individual milli-kelvins, over a very broad range of temperatures: -120 to +680 degrees centigrade. Please see news link for more information
£1.3m Grant Awards - August 2011
Awards top £1,3m in August 2011, with major awards for Jeremy Sloan, Claire Foullon, Mike Allen plus substantial contributions from: Sandra Chapman, Mark Newton, and Gary Barker :
| Mike Allen £71,694 EPSRC | Subproject for Institution # 26409 Hard-soft matter interfaces: from understanding to engineering- EPSRC Programme grant. |
| Sandra Chapman £80,701 EC | TURBOPLASMAS: Turbulent phenomena in space plasmas: Boosting observations, data analysis and numerical simulations |
| Claire Foullon £432,816 STFC | Flow-driven Instabilities of the Sun-Earth System |
| Jeremy Sloan (Richard Beanland)£500,518 EPSRC | Supercritical Fluid Electrodeposition (Programme Grant) |
| Diane Holland £500 (AWE Plc) | Corporate Sponsorship |
| Mark Newton £39,994 Gemological Institute of America | Adaption of a monozoom microscope to produce an experimental rig for selected-area colorimetry |
| Gary Barker Ben Morgan, Yorck Ramachers£34,815 EC | LAGUNA-LBNO—Design of a pan-European Infrastructure for Large Apparatus studying Grand Unification, Neutrino Astrophysics and Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillations |
| Malcolm Cooper £71,694 Diamond Light Source Ltd | Secondment agreement for Diamond Light Source Limited - Gemma Newby |
| David Leadley £650 Paintbox Banbury Ltd | Industrial placement agreement - Volker Keinhorst (arranged through MPAGS 2 scheme, cross-ref MPAGS 2 collaboration agreement 26938) |
| Richard Beanland £800 Vetted Limited | Short form agreement for project SEM analysis of coated car engine piston |