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Volume 10, No. 4. July 2002. |
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In this issue.... |
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Bill Hiscock was lead organizer of the first National Space Grant "Starting Student Space Hardware Programs" workhop, held at the University of Colorado, June 20-22. The workshop was attended by 65 faculty from 33 states, including Mike Murray and David Klumpar from MSU. MSGC's BOREALIS ballooning program was highlighted in the workshop, and John Belz along with MSU students Ryan Belohlavek and Sean Kirn made presentations at the workshop and led the participants in a triple balloon flight over eastern Colorado on June 22. On July 16, the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory received a 5,400 lb, 14 ft vacuum chamber donated by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The chamber is outfitted for testing large rocket payloads, and will be used to characterize the Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph (MOSES). Planned future applications for this new chamber include calibration of ultraviolet optical instruments and environmental testing of small spacecraft.
Awards Honors and New Positions Bill Hiscock has been elected Chair of the National Council of Space Grant Directors for the term July 1, 2002 -- June 30, 2004. Bill Hiscock has been elected to a three year term on the Board of Directors of the EPSCoR Foundation. Mike Murray (Assistant Director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium) has moved back to the planetarium world, accepting a position as Program Manager for the new Hansen Planetarium in Salt Lake City. Best wishes in your new job, Mike! "Spectroscopy of Rare Earth-Doped Materials for Hole Burning Devices and Laser Frequency Stabilization", Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Luminescents, Universite Lyon I, Lyon, France, March 28, 2002. "Energies of 4fN and 4fN-15d States Relative to Host Bands in Rare-Earth-Activated Optical Materials", C. W. Thiel, Y. Sun, and R. L. Cone, 23rd Rare Earth Research Conference, University of California, Davis, California, July 14-18, 2002. "Coherent Spectroscopy of Er3+-Doped Crystals for 1.5 mm Optical Signal Processing and Laser Frequency Stabilization", R. L. Cone, Y. Sun, Thomas Böttger, G. Reinemer, C. W. Thiel, T. L. Harris, G. J. Pryde, N. M. Strickland, R. W. Equall, R. L. Hutcheson, R. C. C. Ward, and Glynn D. Jones, 23rd Rare Earth Research Conference, University of California, Davis, California, July 14-18, 2002 "Reminiscences of the Werner Wolf Group 1967-1971 and Cone Group Research at Montana State University", Rufus Cone, Retirement Celebration for Professor Werner Paul Wolf, Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 18-19, 2001. Other presenters included Dr. James Brug of Hewlett Packard Research and Dr. Mark Ritter of IBM Research; both were part of the ‘Montana Wolf Pack’ along with Dr. Chris Tigges of Sandia Laboratories (that is, graduates of MSU who went on to Ph.D’s at Yale). Student Opportunities in Research Labs Marita R. La Rance and LaQuinta Fighting Bear were in the Schmidt lab for six weeks this summer under the MAP program for high school students. The students worked with Nikki Hallenberg on preparation and characterization of conducting polymers. Kyle Story, a Bozeman High School student, was working in the Schmidt lab with Mike Patterson making photostrictive ceramics. They also worked with Norm Williams and Hugo on design and construction of a high temperature oven for NMR, dielectric and conductivity measurements. Cooper McCann, a junior in Physics from Pony, Montana, joined the Cone/Sun Group for summer research. Roger Macfarlane, Emeritus Member of the Technical Staff of IBM Almaden Research Center will join the Physics Department part time as a Senior Research Scientist, collaborating with the Cone/Sun Group. Seminars
Condensed Matter: “Investigation of Sputter Deposition of Nitride Semiconductor Films Including Rare Earth Dopants”, Hong Chen, Department of Physics and Astronomy Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, July 8. "Fibrinolysis of recanalized clots under turbulent flow", Aleksander Zidansek, J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 26. "Domain wall motion and main aspects of domain engineering in lithium niobate and lithium tantalate", Vladimir Ya. Shur, Ural State University, Ekaterinburg, Russia, July 31.
Optics Group: "Er3+ Doped Glasses for Fiber Amplifiers in the 1.55 micron Telecommunications Bands: Inhomogeneous and Homogeneous Structure of the 4I13/2 to 4I15/2 Transition in Oxide, Fluoride and Sulfide Glasses", Bernard Jacquier, Directeur de Recherche CNRS Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Luminescents & Head of Lyon NanOpTec Center Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 Villeurbanne, July 25. Loren Acton, David McKenzie and Jun Sato traveled to Tokyo, Nobeyama, and Fuchinobe, Japan to attend meetings for Galileo and work with ISAS, July 6-24. Bill Hiscock traveled to NASA HQ May 22-24 to present a briefing on the Space Grant program to Courtney Stadd, NASA Chief of Staff and Presidential Liaison. While there he also visited with Orlando Figueroa, Director of the Mars Exploration Office, to discuss the possibilities of sending student designed and built spacecraft to Mars as a component of NASA's 2007 mission. Bill Hiscock organized and presided over the National Space Grant Directors Council Leadership Transition Meeting, held in Boulder, CO, June 18-19. Bill Hiscock traveled to the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona July 10 to meet with LPL and JPL representatives concerning the Space Grant Student Mars Spacecraft program. Bill Hiscock traveled to NASA HQ July 12 to brief Paul Pastorek on the Space Grant program. Paul is General Counsel at NASA and also head of the "tiger team" that is reorganizing all NASA education programs following the elevation of education to be one of NASA's three primary missions. Rufus Cone and Charles Thiel presented an invited talk at the 23rd Rare Earth Research Conference in Davis, CA, July 16-18. Aleks Rebane attended the annual SPIE meeting in Seattle, WA, July 6-12. Neil Cornish traveled to Princeton, NJ, to work with David Spergel analyzing MAP Satellite Data. Neil and Ron Hellings attended the LISA Symposium at Penn State, July 8-30. Yves Idzerda traveled to San Francisco, CA, to attend the Physical Sciences Proposal Review Panel July 11-13, and then attended the Science Advisory Committee Meeting of ALS in Berkeley, CA, July 17-19. Recep Avci and Fernando Teran-Arce attended ONR Coatings/Biofouling Program Review in San Diego, CA, July 18-28. Dave Klumpar participated in a NASA Advisory Committee Meeting in Washington, DC, July 15-18. Meredith Wills-Davey traveled to Palo Alto, CA, July 6-21, to collaborate with scientists at Lockheed Martin studying data from the TRACE satellite. The Mission Initiation Conference for the MOSES rocket mission was held at NASA Wallops Flight Facility (Wallops Island, VA). Attendees from MSU included Charles Kankelborg (PI), Lewis Fox, and Dustin Cram, July 31-Aug 4. Brian Handy (PhD '98) now works for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (Tokyo, Japan) as a Senior Unix/Database administrator for the Asia-Pacific region. Brian says in his spare time he's sampling Japanese beer and food, watching sumo and exploring the rugged outside-of-Tokyo countryside. Guangming Wang (PhD '97) is working for Corning in Massachusetts. "Material Optimization of Er3+:Y2SiO5 at 1.5 mm for optical processing, memory, and laser frequency stabilization applications", Thomas Böttger, Yongchen Sun, Charles W. Thiel, and R. L. Cone, Photonics West 2003, San Jose, California, January, 2003.
Publications Submitted: "Programmable sub-kHz Laser Frequency Stabilization at 1523 nm using Persistent Spectral Hole Burning", Thomas Böttger, G. J. Pryde, and R. L. Cone, submitted to Optics Letters.
Publications Accepted: "Unequal Arm Space-borne Gravitational Wave Detectors", Shane L. Larson, Ronald W. Hellings, William A. Hiscock, accepted for publication in the Physical Review D (gr-qc/0206081). |
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Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky, of ELOP (Electrooptics Industries Ltd), Rehovot Israel, visited the Cone/Sun Group for the month of July to carry out experiments on the laser material Yb3+:YAG grown by Scientific Materials. Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky was a Sabbatical Visitor, supported in part by MONTS. Dr. Bernard Jacquier and Dr. Anne-Marie Jurdyc of the Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Luminescents, Université Claude Bernard Lyon I, Lyon, France, and Laurent Bigot of Alcatel Research, Marcoussis, France, visited the Cone/Sun Group during July 20 – 26, for spectral hole burning experiments on erbium-doped glasses used in commercial fiber amplifiers for telecommunications. The Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph (MOSES) Preliminary Design Review was held at MSU on July 22. Participants included Profs. Acton, Klumpar, and Cairns. Dr. Marilyn Bruner of Bermar Science and Technologies traveled from Palo Alto, CA to attend the review. Hiritha & C.V.Ramana are the proud parents of baby girl Srija Ramana.
Born: Saturday July 13th at
5:10 p.m. |
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Compiled & Edited by:Rose Waldon |
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