The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has selected Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientist Matthew Loyd for an Early Career Research Program award.
Loyd, an R&D staff scientist in the Neutron Technologies Division, was selected by the Basic Energy Sciences program for his proposal, “Development of a Novel High-Count-Rate, High-Resolution Neutron Camera with Advanced Gamma Discrimination Capabilities.”
“ORNL’s early career researchers are driving scientific discoveries and innovations that will impact the laboratory and the nation for years to come,” said ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer. “Neutron science is one of our signature strengths, and I look forward to seeing the advances in neutron scattering that Matthew will lead with the support of this distinguished award.”
The detector will be based on current camera technologies that convert low-energy neutrons into thousands of visible photons and an array of silicon photomultipliers that will identify the neutrons’ positions. Improvements in detector hardware, firmware and software will allow for simultaneous neutron detection at separate locations on the detector at count rates greater than one million neutrons per second. The detector’s ability to reject gamma radiation, which is unavoidably produced during neutron scattering experiments, will enable observing extremely weak but scientifically important data signals in many experiments.
“As neutron sources become more powerful, and next-gen neutron techniques become more sensitive, current neutron detector technologies are being pushed past fundamental limits of count rate, spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio,” said Loyd. “To meet future detector requirements, our project will develop a general-purpose neutron detector suitable for a wide range of scattering instruments.”
DOE has selected 91 early career scientists nationwide, employed across 12 DOE national laboratories and 50 universities, to receive a combined $138 million across five years to cover salary and research expenses. Since its inception in 2010, the program has granted 961 awards, with 631 awards to university researchers and 330 awards to national laboratory researchers.
Many researchers complete their most formative work in these early career years. Since its inception in 2010, the Early Career Awards Program has strengthened U.S. scientific discovery by supporting early career researchers in fields related to the Office of Science’s eight major program offices: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Biological and Environmental Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Accelerator R&D and Production and Isotope R&D and Production.
A researcher must be an untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professor at a U.S. academic institution or a full-time employee at a DOE national laboratory or Office of Science user facility to be eligible. Each project award is subject to final grant and contract negotiations between DOE and the awardee.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. — Paul Boisvert
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