On October 11, 2016 the American Physical Society (APS) announced that Jens Dilling, TRIUMF Associate Lab Director for Physical Sciences, has been awarded the 2017 Francis M. Pipkin Award, which honours exceptional research accomplishments by a scientist in the interdisciplinary area of precision measurement and fundamental constants and to encourage the wide dissemination of the results of that research. The award cites Dilling “for technical contributions and the use of Penning traps for the precise measurement of short-lived, radioactive nuclei such as halo nuclei and highly charged ions.”
An expert on ion traps, Dilling led the design, construction and operation of the the TITAN (TRIUMF’s Ion Trap for Atomic and Nuclear science) system at TRIUMF’s ISAC accelerator complex. TITAN has become the fastest and one of the most precise ion trap mass spectrometers in the world, enabling for example first-time measurements of the quintessential neutron-halo nucleus lithium-11 in a trap, a breakthrough for nuclear physics.
Dilling responded, “I am very honored to be chosen for this award, in particular in light of its interdisciplinary aspect. For me the measurements at TITAN bring together high precision atomic physics techniques applied at accelerator-based facilities to answer fundamental nuclear physics questions. This highlights how the disciplines have grown and what the impact of crossing their boundaries has been.'
The Pipkin Award honours the memory of Francis M. Pipkin, an enthusiastic and active member of the Topical Group on Precision Measurements and Fundamental Constants whose wide interests in physics included experiments in condensed matter, nuclear, high energy, and atomic, molecular and optical physics, always with a special interest in precision measurements. The award includes travel to the APS April Meeting in Washington D.C. in January 2017 to present a prestigious invited lecture on his work.
TRIUMF extends an enthusiastic congratulation to Jens on this well deserved award!