Profile

I work at Diamond Light Source – a particle accelerator that accelerates tiny particles (electrons) up to pretty much the speed of light. When these electrons fly through a magnetic field they get pushed to one side and emit light – synchrotron radiation.

I design and make special magnets that push the electrons from side to side and make them wiggle, and every time the electrons wiggle they produce a burst of light. These magnets are called ‘wigglers’ (imaginative naming right!?) or ‘insertion devices’.

I use various different materials and technologies to make these magnets, including special rare-earth magnets that have very strong magnetic fields. These Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnets are much stronger than the magnets on your fridge.

Magnetic fields can also be made by passing a current through a coil. The higher the current the stronger the magnetic field. Under normal circumstances the amount of current you can pass through a wire is limited by the resistance of that wire – too much current in the wire and it will melt! Fortunately there are some amazing materials that have ZERO resistance – superconductors! However these only operate at very low temperatures and they need to be cooled in liquid helium which is a cool 269 degrees below zero! This technology is also used in the wigglers at Diamond.

Everything (well, most things) I do at work are in the pursuit of designing, building or operating magnets for the Diamond electron accelerators.

At the design stage I will be working at my computer with various softwares that help me to calculate the magnetic fields I need. I tell the computer the how I want magnets and electrical wires arranged, and the computer tells me what the strength of the magnetic field is. Then if I need to I can change things around until I get the answer I need!

At this stage I might also need to write my own software or shortcuts (scripts) to speed up my work.

Once the magnets have been designed mechanical engineers at Diamond will try and turn them into designs that can actually be made.

Once the magnets have been made I will measure them using our special equipment for measuring magnetic fields, a Hall Effect probe, or a coil of wire. If I need to I will make small mechanical changes to the magnets to tune, or shim them to make sure they are precisely right.

I’m also responsible for making sure that our superconducting magnets are working properly by keeping them cold- really cold at -269℃. I do this by keeping them submerged in liquid helium and keeping all the cooling equipment in good condition!

Sometimes I will need to study how the magnets are behaving one they have been installed, and this means I get to play with one of the most expensive pieces of scientific equipment in the country – the Diamond particle accelerator!

Because there are not many people in the UK who do the work I do, I sometimes get to go to meet people at conferences in other parts of the world. These are great opportunities to see what other people are doing in my line of work and to come up with new ideas for the future.

Diamond is a facility that does a lot of science for the benefit of everybody, and it is very important to make sure the public knows what we do and why we are awesome. This means that a few days per year I will be involved in showing students and members of the public around the facility and trying to explain all of the amazing science we do. I really enjoy those days because I love talking about where I work. (Because working at a particle accelerator is as exciting as it sounds!)