Camille Ginsburg prepares Fermilab for the future
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Camille Ginsburg |
Camille Ginsburg's job is to look to the future - and make sure Fermilab has the right tools to reach it.
As project scientist for the Fermilab superconducting radiofrequency cavity vertical test facility, Ginsburg searches for ways to improve cavities that will accelerate charged particles in future accelerators.
"I think superconducting radiofrequency particle acceleration is an important technology," Ginsburg said. "For future projects at Fermilab, it seems likely that it will play a critical role."
Ginsburg came to Fermilab in 2005 after working at the University of Wisconsin - Madison on the CDF experiment at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider.
Ginsburg coordinates a team that devises ways to clean, process and test the quality of cavities. She is working to produce cavities that can reliably impart 35 megaelectron volts of energy to a particle in one meter. Thousands of these cavities would be needed for future accelerators, so industrializing the production is vital to using them successfully.
The perfect cavity must be made of high-quality niobium material polished to a mirror-smooth finish, including the welded joints in the cavities, she said. It must also be free of dust or contaminants, which can be introduced during assembly.
So far, laboratories around the world have completed about two dozen nine-cell cavities that can perform at the required level.
Ginsburg earned her Ph.D. in physics at Northwestern University and was also a research associate at Ohio State University.
-- Kathryn Grim
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