News

Landmark Nature paper featuring CLF work led by a team from the Plasma Physics Group hits 1000 citation mark

An article featuring work carried out by a team led by the Imperial College Plasma Physics Group on the CLF’s Astra laser - precursor to the current Gemini facility - on 'Monoenergetic beams of relativistic electrons from intense laser–plasma interactions’ and published in the journal Nature in 2004 has reached the coveted academic milestone with over 1000 citations.

The full article can be read on STFC's website.

CIFS AT THE PRESTIGIOUS ROYAL SOCIETY SUMMER SCIENCE EXHIBITION

"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun"

CIFS proposal for an exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, 1st July - 6th July 2014, was chosen out of over one hundred other proposals as a showcase of exciting UK science.

The annual summer science exhibition, which has been run in some form for hundreds of years, attracted over 15,000 people including many MPs, journalists, and members of the general public.

Our exhibit, "Set the controls for the heart of the Sun", told visitors about how we can now recreate conditions inside stars using high power lasers such as the Orion laser facility based at AWE Aldermaston, and how we are working towards reproducing the way the Sun produces energy - through nuclear fusion reactions - here on Earth. Real scientists were on hand to answer questions, and present videos and simulations showing how one of the most powerful lasers in the world operates. The stand also included interactive demos, with the opportunity to pop a balloon using a laser beam proving to be a big hit! More information on the event can be found on the Royal Society's website.

Malcolm Haines: It is with great sadness that we report the death of Malcolm Haines (13 January 2013), a long standing member of the Plasma Physics Group at Imperial College. Malcolm was one of the leading Plasma Physicists of his generation. His good humour, charm, insight and enthusiasm will be deeply missed.

It is with pleasure however that we announce the Malcolm Haines room 741 Blackett Laboratory - a seminar room named in Malcolm's honour and officially opened on Wednesday 30th september 2015.

Awards

• Hyun Tae Kim, PhD Student: Hyun, a 3rd year PhD student based at Culham Science Centre and affiliated to the Plasma Physics Group, won the poster prize at the PGR Research Symposium, held on 28th June 2011
• Stefan Kneip, Research Associate: Stefan receiving the EPS award for thebest thesis in plasma physics at the EPS Plasma Physics meeting in Strasbourg (27th June - 1st July 2011)

• Plasma PhD student awarded  #SummerDataChallenge: Jason Cole was the joint winner in the #SummerDataChallenge: a big data contest for UK university students, organised by Imperial College London’s Data Science Institute in partnership with Starcount, Purple Seven and Imperial Create Lab. The challenge was an open-ended contest to find new insights using some prepared datasets, and propose how these new insights could be used to create social or economic value in the form of new products, services, or businesses. A summary of Jason’s data analysis (on London house prices) can be found on his blog.

Recent Articles

• MG Haines, A review of dense Z-pinch, Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, vol. 53, pp093001 (2011)