Tao Kong, Ph.D. candidate at UBC, was recently awarded the Annual Dr. Carl W. Wescott Memorial Fellowship for 2009/2010 for his excellence in research with the TRINAT group, under the direction of TRIUMF research scientist John Behr. Tao's area of interest resides in Nuclear and Atomic, Molecular and Optical (AMO) physics, focusing on the investigation of nuclear physics using laser-cooled neutral isotopes. The recognition comes with a $7,600 award.
"I feel greatly honored to receive this prize, it gives me confidence about my work in TRINAT group," said Tao. His Ph.D. project relates to the search for exotic particle emissions in the decay of trapped Rb isomers. Tao is involved with most of the experimental setups and data acquisition, which includes detector assembling and calibrations, time-of-flight simulations using SimIon, experimental setup for photo-ionization, and calculations and measurements of the isotope shifts.
"I am in the final stage of my Ph.D., currently working on data analysis, and then I'll move forward in writing the thesis," explained Tao. The forward-thinking researcher then outlined a few goals for his project, which would benefit the entire TRINAT program. Tao continued, "I am also trying to improve the Power Build Up cavity to increase the intensity for photo-ionization laser; this will increase our event rate by two orders of magnitude, and greatly improve the sensitivity for exotic particle searches".
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Tao next to the experimental chamber in the TRINAT lab at TRIUMF. |
The isomers are trapped by a laser cooling and trapping method; after a gamma decay, the decay daughter will be photo-ionized and collected for analysis in an electrostatic spectrometer. By measuring the time-of-flight and positions of the photoions on the detectors, the recoiling momentum can be measured. The signature for a new particle would be a smaller recoil momentum than expected.
John Behr, adjunct professor at UBC, attested to Tao's brilliant research capabilities. "Just demonstrating that he could photoionize the fast decay product atoms was harder atomically than anything we've done, or anything we plan to do. Tao has been the ideal physicist to drive this project forward," Behr said.
Sharing a hometown with one of the greatest thinkers in Chinese history, Confucius, Tao was born in Qu Fu, a small city in northern China. Tao completed his undergraduate degree at Shan Dong University, China, and then completed his Masters degree of Science at UBC as he worked with Dr. Kirk Madison.
Congratulations to Tao on his success and we wish him the best of luck!
-- Melissa M. Baluk, TRIUMF Communications Assistant