1995 JR Macdonald Lab Departmental Newsletter Article
Note that no attempt has been made to maintain the links in older newsletters.

It has been another exciting year in the Macdonald Laboratory. We have just completed and submitted to DOE our three year progress report for the period FY92-FY94, and our three year proposal for FY95-FY97.

In November 1994 we anticipate that an outside review panel of the Department of Energy will be here to review our progress and to discuss our proposed research. The result of this review sets the standard for our funding for the next three years. Our requested budget level for FY95 funding, which begins February 15, 1995 for us, is approximately 1.9M$.

The JRM staffing level is nearly the same as last year. We have 13 faculty, 2 visiting faculty, 4 research associates, 7 staff members, 14 graduate students, and 6 undergraduate students.

Here are some of the exciting things occurring in the laboratory:

• Prof. Frank Melchert, from the University of Giessen, is here on a one-year Humboldt Fellowship. He is working on the new ion-ion collision facility with Prof. John Giese.
• Prof. Eduardo Montenegro, from Pontificia Universidade Catolica Do Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, is here on a one-year sabbatical leave. He is working with Profs. Itzik Ben-Itzhak, Lew Cocke and Pat Richard, on several new LINAC experiments and contributing greatly with theoretical analyses.
• One of the very successful efforts this year is the increased involvement of outside users.
• Prof. Steve Lundeen's group from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, spent the summer here setting up his powerful laser produced Rb Rydberg target for experiments on CRYEBIS. The experiments are being performed in collaboration with Prof. Brett DePaola's group. Total electron capture cross section measurements from high Rydberg states by highly charged ions have been successfully completed. The second stage of these experiments is in progress.
• A collaboration with Profs. Eugene Rudd and Tim Gay from the University of Nebraska has been initiated. An electron spectrometer system equipped with a Slevin type atomic hydrogen target developed at the University of Nebraska has been put into operation on the JRM Lab LINAC. The apparatus will be used to measure for the first time the global production of electrons by pure ionization from high Z bare ions on atomic hydrogen. This project addresses the Z-scaling of the most fundamental three-body atomic collision system. The work is being done in collaboration with Profs. Lew Cocke, Siegbert Hagmann, and Pat Richard. Dr. Robert Moshammer, who is visiting from GSI, Darmstadt, is the person devoting full time to this experiment.
• The third new collaboration initiated is with Profs. Emanuel Kamber and John Tanis from the University of Western Michigan. Emanuel spent the summer here working on electron production experiments at the EBIS as well as planning for future experiments. He is collaborating with Prof. Lew Cocke and Dr. Martin Stockli.
• We hired Paul Gibson as an assistant scientist to assist Martin in the operation, maintenance and use of the EBIS. This has allowed Martin some much needed breathing space and allowed him to reduce his long list of "things to be done." Paul worked for the Macdonald Lab on the EBIS project at the beginning of the laboratory upgrade project in 1985-88 as an undergraduate assistant. We are very pleased to get him back.
• Last year I mentioned our effort to get funds from the Department of Energy ARIM fund. We were successful and received $621,000 for improvements to the LINAC, CRYEBIS, and associated equipment. We have a request for FY96 ARIM funds which I understand is approved by DOE, contingent on DOE's congressional budget approval.
• Vickie Frohne received her Ph.D. degree in 1994 under the direction of Prof. Lew Cocke. She is presently an Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University.
• For the third consecutive summer, the JRM Lab hosted eight undergraduate students in the NSF REU summer trainee program. Prof. Larry Weaver was in charge of the program, doing an outstanding job lecturing these students and quizzing them during oral reports on their research projects.
• For the third consecutive summer, we also hosted graduate students from the University of Dresden, Germany. This summer we had four students who spent 10 weeks of research training in the JRM Lab.

Pat Richard
Director, JRML
November '94