Congratulations to Anthony Vazquez, a graduate student at the BELLA Center in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division at Berkeley Lab, who received a student poster award at this year’s Advanced Accelerator Concepts (AAC) Workshop, held in Los Angeles, California, July 26-31. Established in 1982, the AAC Workshop is the principal U.S. meeting for advanced particle accelerator research and development, drawing strong international participation from scientists and research leaders in particle-beam, laser, and plasma physics.
“I feel incredibly honored to have received this award,” says Vazquez. He adds that the award was presented to the six best student posters at the workshop, and that recipients were invited to deliver a 15-minute presentation on their research.
The poster, titled “Stability and Optical Quality of ‘Windmill’-Formed 8CB Liquid Crystal Films for Replenishable Plasma Mirrors,” presented the first comprehensive characterization of 4-octyl-4’-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) liquid crystal films across a range of temperatures and wiping speeds. Fabricated using a “windmill” device consisting of a polished aluminum surface with lens-tissue wipers rotating over a 10 mm aperture, these ultra-thin films, only 10-15 nm thick, serve as plasma mirrors, providing reliable, low-debris, and cost-effective coupling optics for scalable, high-repetition-rate, multi-stage laser-plasma acceleration experiments.
Vazquez says the 15-minute presentation provided the opportunity to “talk to the community at AAC about my work, because I knew it would be a huge help to others exploring liquid crystals as an option for their labs’ plasma mirror research (or as a target).”
“I have to give the biggest thanks to all of my colleagues who have provided help and feedback throughout this process, as I owe it to them that I was able to receive this award. Without them, these results would not have been possible.”
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