Professor Lanford

The 4MV ion beam accelerator located on the Albany campus offers unique capabilities for materials physics. Current materials research topics include: 1) clean surfaces, interfaces, and surface-sensitive properties of materials; 2) defects in solids; 3) hydrogen in solids.

Much of this research is interdisciplinary, ranging from fundamental physics, to new technologies (particularly microelectronics), to applications in art history and archaeology. Recent basic physics work has discovered that (upon annealing in some metal/metal thin film structures) there can be elemental transport in patterns that challenge our understanding of the mechanisms driving atom transport in solids. In the technology area, recent work has enhanced our knowledge of how ion implantation can be used to inhibit the corrosion of copper and how this knowledge can be utilized in designing a microelectronic manufacturing processes in which copper is used as a principal conductor. In the area of art history and archaeology, work has included studies of how trace element content can be used to determine the geologic sources of materials used by prehistoric peoples to manufacture pottery and obsidian artifacts. Other work has concentrated on understanding how glasses react with atmospheric water and how this knowledge can be used to improve the accuracy of obsidian hydration dating and to better conserve historic stained glass in cathedral windows.

The ion beam facility has four accelerators devoted to different aspects of materials physics. The largest is a computer-controlled 4.5 MV Dynamitron which can accelerate electrons, protons and heavier ions. This machine has specialized experimental end-stations, including an ultrahigh vacuum chamber, goniometers for channeling measurements, and a focused ion beam microprobe with a spatial resolution of 1-2 microns. The smaller accelerators are a 1 MV tandem, and 400 KV and 150 KV ion implanters. Two highly skilled engineers, lots of electronics and computers, and an extensive software library make these accelerators specially productive.

Albany Accelerator Lab