Dr Brian McNeil awarded Particle Accelerator and Beams Group Prize and FEL Prize

Dr Brian McNeil has recently been awarded two professional prizes.

The first, awarded in July 2022, is the Institute of Physics Particle Accelerator and Beams Group Prize for his Outstanding Professional Contribution in the field of accelerator science and technology.

The second, awarded in August 2022, is the FEL Prize for 2022. This Prize was awarded at the international FEL2022 conference in recognition of Brian’s outstanding achievements in the advancement of the field of Free-Electron Lasers (FEL).

X-ray Free Electron Lasers are a unique source of very high brightness coherent X-rays. These X-rays can image how atoms and molecules behave at their own time-scales allowing ‘molecular movies’ of their interactions to be made. They consequently have a very wide range of applications, from allowing us to see how viruses function and behave, to what interactions occur in the matter at the centre of warm, dense planets like Jupiter. It is no wonder, then, that many countries are now investing heavily in these X-ray FELs (at a cost of close to £1 billion per facility).

August 2022