Personnel
Professor Damian Hampshire
EMAIL: [email protected]
Damian Hampshire is a Professor of Physics at Durham University working on superconductivity in high magnetic fields for MRI, accelerator and fusion energy applications.
Dr Mark J Raine
EMAIL: [email protected]
Mark is Chief Experimental Officer in the Physics Department and head of the ITER laboratory in Durham. This is the standards laboratory for the European contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project being built in Cadarache, Southern France. In early 2011 Durham University signed a contract with Fusion for Energy (F4E – the Domestic Agency responsible for Europe’s contribution to ITER) to provide characterisation data from seven types of measurement on up to 2000 Nb3Sn superconducting strands earmarked for inclusion in ITER’s toroidal field magnets. Additionally, the laboratory was given responsibility for preparing and measuring Witness samples (used to quality check the heat-treatments of the toroidal field pancake coils) and provide a suite of measurements on NbTi strands being used to make one of the poloidal field coils (PF6). To date, over 13000 measurements have been made. In conjunction with this work for F4E the laboratory has also provided specialist high-field, high-current, measurements on different types of superconductors – including Rutherford cables – to the wider scientific and industrial community.
Jack Greenwood
EMAIL: [email protected]
Jack is a postgraduate student at Durham and a member of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy, based in York (http://www.fusion-cdt.ac.uk/). He is investigating the biaxial strain dependence of the critical current and the effects of percolation and distributions of critical superconducting parameters on the critical current in technological high temperature superconductors. By understanding the effects of biaxial strain and percolation, the properties of the superconductors can be optimised for high field applications, such as fusion energy. This work includes designing and commissioning bespoke experimental apparatus that can be used in our world-class 15 tesla split-pair horizontal magnet system and performing high field current transport measurements of up to 2000 A on superconductors in the nanovolt range.
Charles Gurnham
EMAIL: [email protected]
Charles is a post-graduate student at Durham who joined us in October 2018. He is a member of the ESPRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy. He is looking at the effect of biaxial strain on the critical current in REBCO tapes in high magnetic fields, using Durham’s 15T Helmholtz magnet. High temperature superconductors are known to be highly strain dependent, so better understanding of the effect of strain on the behaviour of these materials in the high magnetic fields found in superconducting magnets will inform construction of magnets used in next-generation fusion reactors and other high-field applications.
Bradley Din
EMAIL: [email protected]
Brad is a postgraduate student at Durham, joining the group in October 2019. He is a member of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy, based in the York Plasma Institute. Currently, he is investigating the mechanism that determines the critical current density in high field polycrystalline superconductors using computational simulations based on time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory. This work has importance in optimising the critical current density of superconductors in high field technological applications, such as for compact fusion energy tokamaks, where observed critical current densities are typically less than 1% of the theoretical limit.
Charles Haddon
EMAIL: [email protected]
Charles started his computational PhD in October 2020 at Durham as a student on the materials strand. He is investigating the properties of irradiated superconductors in strong magnetic fields. This involves taking measurements with Culham’s new 13 T PPMS, as well as computational modelling using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory. Superconducting coils in tokamaks will experience significant fluences of both fast neutrons and gamma rays, and so understanding how this affects their performance will inform future design. Prior to arriving in Durham, Charles spent 4 years at the University of Birmingham earning an M.Sci. in Theoretical Physics.
Rollo Hutson
EMAIL: [email protected]
Rollo started his experimental PhD in Durham’s Superconductivity Group in Oct 2021, supervised by Professor Damian Hampshire, as part of the EPSRC’s Fusion CDT, having finished a master’s degree in Engineering at Durham University and worked in industry for two years.
Emma Gillard
EMAIL: [email protected]
Emma began her experimental PhD in October 2021 with the Superconductivity Group at Durham University under the supervision of Profs. Damian Hampshire and Elizabeth Bromley. During her PhD she will be part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy, based in York. This is a training programme that involves five different universities across the UK and provides general teaching of the physics behind energy generation by fusion.