Two decades of collaboration reaps rewards
A team of AWE physicists and academics from the University of Oxford who have been collaborating for 20 years to solve a ‘grand challenge’ – which had proved elusive until now – have had their work published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
L-R: Tom Butcher, builder of the DiPOLE laser at XFEL; Donna Strickland, joint winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics recognised for her work in the development of chirped pulsed amplification used in the Orion laser; and Professor Justin Wark from the University of Oxford. (Copyright: European XFEL / Axel Heimken)
Fundamental to ensuring the performance, safety and reliability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent is modelling and the use of equations-of-state (EOS) of materials. EOS describes characteristics such as how pressure, density and temperature are related that aid our understanding of how materials respond to being rapidly compressed to extreme conditions by shock waves – a major area of interest for AWE.
Measuring the temperature of a system, which is compressed to hundreds of thousands of times atmospheric pressure (100s kbar) and which is moving at more than a 1000 m/s – and will remain in that state for just a few billionths of a second – was the grand challenge which AWE set researchers at the University of Oxford.
Initial ideas from various experts for measuring temperature were discussed and debated at great length and over several years, but showed to be difficult and unfeasible.
Despite the adversity however, AWE scientists along with those from Oxford, the US national labs and other institutions came to together to continue to develop and enhance experimental techniques – without losing focus or impetus of what they needed to do to solve the grand challenge.
The key breakthrough came with the use of European XFEL during which collaborators were able to accurately measure the amount of ‘jiggling’ of atoms, allowing the temperature to be measured and thus cracking the problem.
Director of OxCHEDS at the University of Oxford, Professor Justin Wark, and lead author on the work describing these results said: “Being able to measure temperature in shocked materials in this way is a big step forward in our studies of materials in extreme conditions. These successful results are just one of many examples of how strong and sustained collaboration between academia and AWE can lead to high impact results which are important for both partners, and we are grateful for the strong and ongoing support from AWE in this research area.”
AWE Executive Director Science, Andrew Randewich, said: “AWE colleagues and researchers from the University of Oxford are now reaping the rewards of work that we kicked off two decades ago. It is fantastic to see how the coming together of the best minds showed what can be achieved through their perseverance, commitment and dedication over so many years to deliver a successful outcome. I am enormously proud of the AWE and Oxford teams!”
Read the published paper here.
For more information about AWE’s links with academia and industry, get in touch with the External Technical Partnerships Office via email: [email protected]
