Uni research leads to ‘real breakthrough’

PIONEERING laser technology could boost the performance of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (known as CERN) to new levels of efficiency, helping to unlock some of science’s greatest mysteries going back to the ‘Big Bang’.

The technology for the surface modification of metals known as LESS (laser engineered surface structures) for this specific application is the result of a collaboration between the University of Dundee and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Dundee and STFC have now entered into partnership with CERN to employ the new technology, which is aimed at clearing the electron cloud that develops in the LHC and limits the range of experiments that it can handle.

The LESS method has shown potential to reduce the electron cloud to unprecedented low levels.

It involves using lasers to manipulate the surface of metals, and relies on understanding how different metal surfaces react when they are subjected to varying levels of laser fluence or intensity.

Peter McIntosh, deputy head of STFC ASTeC (accelerator science and technology centre), added: “The LESS method should yield many successful applications in the future.

“Through close working interaction between ASTeC vacuum scientists and Dundee University laser specialists, a real breakthrough in suppression of secondary emission yield performance has been accomplished, which could have widespread implications for high electromagnetic field environments, where breakdown limitations are of particular concern, such as sensor systems and applications in satellite and aerospace technologies.”