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Super conductor The new head of TRIUMF’s accelerator division will play a major role in orchestrating the next five-year plan for the subatomic physics research lab
Mission: Create more opportunities for the transfer of TRIUMF’s technology to industry; oversee the development of an advanced electron accelerator Assets: 16 years at the Center for Advanced Studies of Accelerators at the Jefferson Lab in Virginia, where she gathered a wealth of knowledge about electron acceleration technology Yield: An international reputation that raises TRIUMF’s profile on the world stage
 By Curt Cherewayko As the newly appointed head of TRIUMF’s accelerator division, Lia Merminga isn’t so sure her resume entirely fits her job description. “I am familiar with superconducting electron accelerators,” said Merminga, who took the assignment this June, replacing Paul Schmorr. But the major accomplishments thus far of TRIUMF, a subatomic physics research laboratory at the University of British Columbia, have stemmed from proton – rather than electron – acceleration technology. “My background is a better fit for TRIUMF’s future and not so much its past,” said Merminga, referring to the electron accelerator that is in the early stages of development and is slated for completion in 2013. Merminga arrived at TRIUMF from the Jefferson Lab in Virginia, where she directed the Center for Advanced Studies of Accelerators (CASA). After 16 years at Jefferson Lab, which has two super-conducting linear electron accelerators and about twice the staff of TRIUMF, Merminga left to join TRIUMF for several reasons. “TRIUMF employs some of the world’s best experts in accelerator physics,” Merminga said from her office, which is a sparse affair stacked with unpacked boxes in an unassuming wing of TRIUMF’s ISAC building, the home of one of its nuclei accelerators. Merminga lives at TRIUMF’s residency because she hasn’t had time yet to find a home in Vancouver for her and her husband, Yu-Chiu Chao, who is joining Merminga at TRIUMF as an accelerator physicist, and their 14-year-old son. Merminga was also drawn to the lab’s multidisciplinary program. The same technology that’s used to decipher the fundamentals of nuclear and particle physics is also used in life science research and medical treatments. To date, the lab has treated about 130 patients with proton therapy for ocular melanoma, a form of eye cancer. TRIUMF researchers have also built a positron emission tomograph scanner that’s used at the UBC hospital for specialized brain scans. Merminga said another TRIUMF trait that influenced her decision to come to Vancouver was its focus on transferring its technology to industry. “By doing [so], industry benefits, makes money [and] TRIUMF benefits from the royalties. Overall, this whole process together helps move Canada toward a knowledge-based economy.” MDS Nordion exemplifies the lab’s collaboration with industry. Headquartered in Ottawa, MDS has its regional office at TRIUMF, where it operates three of its own cyclotrons to produce medical isotopes. Two of the cyclotrons were developed by TRIUMF. MDS supplies more than half of the global supply of molybdenum-99, the source of an isotope that’s the most widely used in disease diagnosis. The heart of TRIUMF’s research, experiments and industrial applications is its cyclotron – a hulking, spiral-shaped machine that accelerates protons to three-quarters the speed of light. The accelerated protons are shot off into separate beam lines that lead to experiment halls and collision targets. The collisions generate rare and unstable nuclei, which can then be channelled to another accelerator for further acceleration. “If you want to understand astrophysics – the processes that go on inside stars or nova and supernova – you need to come back and understand these nuclear physics properties,” said Merminga. “Understanding what we’re doing here links us to the universe.” TRIUMF formed a committee and held an international search to recruit Merminga. “It’s a very big division,” said Nigel Lockyer, TRIUMF’s director. “It was really an attempt to search the corners of the world for the best possible person.” Lockyer added that Merminga oversees a staff of 130 “If you want to be on the world stage, then you need to have people that are recognized around the world as being world-class scientists. That’s what she brings to the table. This really moves us into the international spotlight.” The electron accelerator is the centrepiece of TRIUMF’s new five-year (2010 to 2015) plan, which Lockyer will unveil in August. Merminga said she wants to do everything she can to make the next five-year plan a reality. In the early stages of development, the electron accelerator will function much like the lab’s proton-accelerating cyclotron, except it will generate unstable and short-lived nuclei on the other side of the stability spectrum. In the middle of the spectrum are the stable nuclei of such elements as gold, lead, carbon and oxygen. Merminga wouldn’t go into detail about the differences between unstable nuclei on either side of the stability spectrum. “That’s what we’re trying to understand,” she said. “If something decays in a millisecond, in a thousandth of a second, it’s hard to study. We generate [nuclei] and try to accelerate them faster than their lifetime and study them before they decay.” Merminga believes TRIUMF’s future lies in superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) technology, which is being used in the lab’s new electron accelerator. By using accelerator cavities made of metals such as niobium, which loses its resistance when cooled to extremely low temperatures, SRF technology generates much more efficient and higher quality particle acceleration. Merminga also views SRF’s potential from an entrepreneurial perspective. “If we firmly establish [SRF], we will be able to transfer this technology to industry,” she said. “Then industry can bid to take jobs to build some of the new accelerators that are based on this technology around the world.” Added Merminga: “It’s great for industry, it’s great for TRIUMF, it’s great for Canada.” •
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Business in Vancouver July 22-28, 2008; issue 978 Photograph: Richard Lam |
