Our Ph.D. student Tal Queller has been selected as the recipient of the 2014 NPSS Graduate Scholarship Award. This award recognizes contributions to the fields of nuclear and plasma science by a graduate student. The award comes with a check for 1500 USD, a Certificate and one year's paid membership in NPSS. During his PhD studies Tal carried out excellent research of the plasma formation in double gap vircator showing that unavoidable plasma formation at the wall of the resonator cavity leads to neutralization of the space charge of electrons in virtual cathode and, respectively to the termination of the microwave generation. Another important finding by Tal is the influence of microwave generation on the plasma parameters during operation of relativistic magnetron. Finally, the most important and pronounced result of his research is a novel source of high-current electron beams based on multi-capillary carbon fibers. Tal, showed that this type of cathode can be used for generation of electron beams with current densities up to tens of kA/cm2 at rather moderate accelerating electric field and that the plasma formed by this cathode does not lead to shorting of the accelerating gap.
Please join me in congratulating Tal.