Research

Summary of Research Interests:

Optical systems for interferometry, adaptive optics and lasers: Adaptive optics systems are now common on ground based telescopes and the technology has evolved to make them affordable for amateur astronomers to use. A laser guidestar adaptive optics system was developed for the Mount Wilson Observatory 100-inch telescope that used full aperture broadcast to project a 351-nm laser 20km above the observatory and collect the Rayleigh Backscattered light for use in removing the effects of atmospheric seeing on astronomical imaging. The optical system require sophisticate optical filter, interferometers for alignment and a XeF2 Excimer laser. This complex instrument provided an excellent test bed for adaptive optics testing. 

Optical thin films:  Optical thin films are important in nearly every aspect of optics and I have been depositing and working with them since graduate school with investigations of anodic oxidation on III-V semiconductors.  This experience lead to working with the 108-inch vacuum  system at the Mount Wilson Observatory and large telescope mirror coating for astronomical telescopes. This lead to working with and modelling interference bandpass filters and designing induced transmission filters.

Electrical properties of energetic materials: Many energetic materials behave as dielectric materials and show the properties of electrical insulators. However, many of these materials can be initiated using electrical energy, raising the question of the tolerance of energetic materials to electrical excitation. Working with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, we have been investigating the dielectric strength of energetic materials in the form of pellets pressed from powder up to kV levels.

Nuclear reactor kinetics: Reactor physics and operating kinetics of CANDU reactors during irregular or unusual conditions; and reactor power monitoring using radiation during shutdown and startup.

Probability of tossed coins landing on edge: My interesting in this problem began in graduate school when a fellow graduate student, Dan B. Murray, and I started looking at the question of tossed coins landing on their edge. This work continues to be of interest and has branched into novel statistical mechanics problems related to systems described using equation of state models.

Ballistics of small arms: The use of computer simulations to investigate ballistics has become very popular over the last decade and there are many ballistics calculators available. These calculators can be used to determine the internal, transitional, external and terminal ballistics of small arms for many common problems. In this work, the appropriate ballistics equations are used to investigate non-traditional or at least non-standard problems with full control of the model and database parameters. Typically the calculations are performed using MATLAB (c).