SAIP Electronic Newsletter Nr 17 - January 2002 CONTENTS: 1. UPE PHYSICS WINS ANOTHER AWARD Japie Engelbrecht (Phajae@upe.ac.za) 2. iTHEMBA WHO? Ginny Stone (stone@nac.ac.za) 3. A RAU COLLABORATION REPORT Aletta Prinsloo (arep@raua.rau.ac.za) 4. LASER ACTIVITY UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT Erich Rohwer (egr@sun.ac.za) 5. NEWS FROM THE COUNCIL Jaynie Padayachee (jpadayachee@bonbon.net) 6. HARTRAO HOSTS FIRST PULSAR WORKSHOP IN AFRICA Beate Woermann (beate@hartrao.ac.za) 7. WHERE LIONS AND PARTICLES MEET Mlungisi Nkosi, Thabo Sepuru and Zanozuko Mabona 8. FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS AND SCHOOLS 9. BURSARIES AVAILABLE ---------------------------------------------------- 1. UPE Physics wins another award Ms Tina Joubert, an MSc student in the department, was awarded the prize for the best poster presentation in the Physical Sciences section at the annual conference of the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa (MSSA). The conference was held from 5-7 December at Wits, Johannesburg. Ms Joubert's poster, entitled "Surface Energies of Low Index Planes of Ti(C,N)", was co-authored by Prof J H Neethling of UPE. The poster described a simple yet elegant method to easily calculate the surface bonding energies between different planes in an alloy system. Ms Joubert's award is the 7th award won in 2001 by students from the Physics department at UPE, as 5 students and one post-doc from the department won awards at the national conference of the South African Institute for Physics in July last year. Prof Japie Engelbrecht, head of the department of Physics, was also re-elected as Vice-president of MSSA at the AGM of the society. ---------------------------------------------------- 2. iThemba Who? On the 30th of November 2001 Notice No 1241 in Government Gazette No 22860 stated: Change of names of two national facilities of the National Research Foundation (NRF) Under the power vested in me by section 23 (d) of the National Research Foundation Act, 1998 (Act no. 23 of 1998), I hereby approve the change of names of the following National Research Facilities operated by the National Research Foundation (NRF), with effect from 1 October 2001: - National Accelerator Centre to be changed to read: iThemba LABS (iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences). - JLB Smith Institute of ichthyology to be changed to read: South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. B.S. Ngubane Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology ---------------------------------------------------- 3. A RAU Collaboration Report The Physics Department at RAU has various collaboration agreements with international research groups worldwide. Many of the staff members regularly visited these groups and the department was also honoured to receive researchers from other groups. Dr. A. Strydom, a senior lecturer at the department, is currently visiting The Institute for Low Temperature and Structure Research in Wroclaw, Poland. The city is home to a university of international standing and a polytechnik, both with strong focus on technical subjects. The Institute for Low Temperature and Structure Research was the home research centre for the pioneering work and first discovery of the magnetism of uranium alloys by W.Trzebiatowski, after whom the Institute was named. The Institute has a strong history of collaboration with research centres of similar interests across Europe and Asia. After a fruitful and growing collaboration between members of the Institute's Magnetism group under leadership of Prof. R. Troc, and the f-Electron Magnetism and Heavy-Fermion Physics Research Group in South Africa under leadership of Prof. P. de V. du Plessis of the University of the Witwatersrand, this collaboration was formalized by an agreement between the Polish Academy of Sciences and the South African National Research Foundation. Collaborative studies presently focus on the magnetism of cerium 4f-electron systems together with Prof. D. Kaczorowski, as well as uranium 5f-electron alloys. Visits to the Institute by members of the f-Electron Magnetism and Heavy-Fermion Physics Research Group are aimed at sharing their expertise on actinide magnetism and performing low-temperature measurements of magnetic susceptibility and magnetization, electrical transport, also in applied magnetic fields, and specific heat. During November and December 2001 Dr. Olav Hellwig, who is currently working at IBM Almaden Research Centre in San Jose (USA), visited the department as part of a collaboration agreement that exists between the institutions. He presented several seminars on the new approaches for the characterization of future magnetic media. In his seminars he emphasised that in current magnetic media the signal-to-noise ratio for high-density recording is achieved by statistically averaging over a large number of weakly interacting magnetic grains per bit. It has now being established that thermal instabilities of individual magnetic grains significant impair the continued increase in area density of longitudinal magnetic recording, often referred to as the ‘super paramagnetic limit’. This limit of conventional magnetic recording media gives rise to an enormous effort in research in order to find new methods and techniques for future high-density media. Possible approaches to push the area density into the range of one terabit/square-inch might be perpendicular recording, patterned, or antiferromagnetically coupled media. Beside conventional characterization methods he also discussed advanced synchrotron soft X-ray scattering techniques to probe the magnetic behaviour of possible future media on the nanometer scale. He explained that as the structure of the media itself gets more and more complex (more layers, more materials) element specific magnetic scattering from soft X-ray synchrotron sources provides a suitable tool for separating the contributions of the different constituents within the media. He also addressed issues of fundamental interest in magnetism such as exchange coupling, exchange bias, and domain wall nucleation, propagation and pinning during a magnetic field reversal. It was very stimulating to have such a young dynamic researcher in the field of thin film magnetism visit the Department of Physics at RAU. ---------------------------------------------------- 4. Laser Activity under the Spot Light The establishment of the National Laser Centre was celebrated with an official opening dinner function at the CSIR conference centre on the 08/11/2001. There was a pronounced increase in the number of applications for apparatus and assistance through the loan pool of the NLC in 2001. Most of the applications could be processed. SAIP members are encouraged to make use of this facility. More information about the NLC can be obtained from the website: http://www.nlcsa.co.za Another event worth mentioning is a workshop which took place at the CSIR conference centre from the 10th to the 12 of October 2001, called "An African Laser Centre". The workshop was officially opened by minister Dr B Ngubane and attended by delegates from the scientific community and governmental institutions from all over Africa. The aim of the workshop was to start negotiations on the establishment a laser centre to beneficial to the whole continent. Further discussions are under way to develop the model. South Africa has also been re-admitted as a member of the International Commission of Optics. Prof. Chavel, secretary general of the Optics commission, attended the ALC workshop, and concluded negotiations to this effect. ---------------------------------------------------- 5. News from the Council 5.1 For Students A brochure describing the SAIP together with a student application form was sent out to Heads of Physics Departments during November 2001, for distribution to students. Members are encouraged to download, print and distribute the brochure together with application form from the Members page of the SAIP web site (www.sun.ac.za/physics/saip/) 5.2 Nomination of candidates for the De Beers Gold Medal Award Members are reminded that nominations for the De Beers Gold Medal close on 28 February 2002. Please send nominations to the Secretary. 5.3 A Big Thank You All SAIP members are thanked for updating their details. 5.4 The Future of Physics in South Africa A proposal for "The Future of Physics in South Africa" was emailed to members on 29 November 2001. Please submit your comments and suggestions on the proposal to the Secretary before the end of January 2002. Please contact the Secretary if you would like more details and/or a copy of the proposal. 5.5 Proposed Change to By-Laws of the SAIP No objections were received to the suggested alteration to the by- laws of the SAIP. Clauses 6.5. and 7.5 regarding the nomination of physicists for the Gold Medal and the Silver Jubilee Medal now read: "“All members will be invited to nominate physicists for the award. The submission must consist of a full Curriculum Vitae of the nominee, accompanied by a full motivation that must clearly describe the fields of activity in physics in which the nominee has excelled, what her/his actual contributions were and the standards by which these contributions have been measured.. Nominees must have been normally resident in South Africa up to the closing date set by Council for the receipt of nominations. Only work done by a SA citizen or someone with a permanent residence permit will be considered for this purpose. The work must have been done in South Africa or during a temporary visit abroad.” The proposed by-law will now be submitted to the 2002 AGM for approval. ---------------------------------------------------- 6. HartRAO Hosts First Pulsar Workshop in Africa HartRAO (Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory) has long been involved in pulsar studies. Pulsars are cosmic lighthouses, consisting of very rapidly spinning neutron stars which radiate narrow beams from their magnetic poles. They are among the densest, most compact objects known and are believed to have superfluid interiors, and some theorists have even speculated that they might have quark matter cores. In spite of being among the best time keepers in the universe, some pulsars suffer almost regular but unpredictable increases in their spin rate, in a phenomenon imaginatively called "glitching". The HartRAO Pulsar Monitoring Programme began in the early '80s when Dr George Downs of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the USA requested radio observatories worldwide to monitor the Vela pulsar. He had developed a model predicting the next Vela glitch and was keen to put it to the test. Dr George Nicolson, the Director of HartRAO, saw the long term potential of such a programme, but HartRAO was not equipped for such observations. The necessary hardware and software was developed and implemented in house, principally by Dr Claire Flanagan, who ran the programme from its inception in 1982 to 1996 when she became Director of the Johannesburg Planetarium. The programme then continued with the involvement of students from the University of Nigeria at Nsukka. The Vela pulsar did not glitch as predicted, but the HartRAO Pulsar Monitoring Programme had been born. Late in 1999, Dr Beate Woermann of HartRAO saw the potential for uniting a variety of persons working on the Pulsar Programme. HartRAO's data are one of the most consistent long-term data sets on pulsars accumulated since their discovery, and offer a good database for understanding the physics of pulsars. Seeing this potential, Beate set to work to gather observational radio astronomers, theoreticians, and electronics and computing experts to push the programme to a new stage of development. As the group began work, they became aware of others working on pulsars in South Africa and in other parts of the African continent. So the idea of the first African Pulsar Workshop was born, and Beate began work on turning this abstract idea into concrete reality. The Workshop took place on the 3rd and 4th December 2001 at HartRAO. The objective was to provide a forum for researchers to describe their work and programmes, and to forge new links and alliances to further pulsar research in Africa. The workshop was attended by delegates from Addis Ababa University, from the Universities of Nigeria, Free State, Potchefstroom, and the Witwatersrand, from Rhodes University, the South African Astronomical Observatory, the Johannesburg Planetarium, the Mauritius Radio Telescope and, of course, HartRAO. International projects represented were MAGIC (Gamma-ray), HESS (Gamma-ray), SALT (Optical) and SKA (Radio). Topics ranged over almost the entire spectrum of pulsar physics including Optical, Radio, X-ray and Gamma-ray pulsars, magnetic field generation, braking indices, precession models, binary evolution, mass accretion, cataclysmic variables, thermal emission, glitches and their role as probes of neutron star interiors, timing noise, pair production, wind magnetisation parameters, cyclic behaviour of timing residuals, using new technologies in the observational programmes, the design of the new pulsar timer for HartRAO, a poster on the MRT pulsar programme, and several discussions on the future of African participation in international pulsar research. A complete set of abstracts for the Workshop, together with the names and affiliations of the presenters of the papers and photographs of the meeting, can be found at http://www.hartrao.ac.za/conferences/pulsars2001/pulsarconf_report.html ---------------------------------------------------- 7. Where lions and particles meet The Second Millennium School on nuclear and particle physics was held in Skukuza (Kruger National Park, Mpumalanga) from the 6th to 11th of January 2002. More than 90% of the participants were undergraduates and postgraduates from various universities and national institutions in South Africa and Mozambique. The topics covered at the school ranged from basic nuclear physics to applied nuclear physics. In the experimental methods section the focus was on the interaction of radiation and matter, detectors and a brief overview of Monte Carlo simulation. Ion beam analysis was also presented with specific focus on Particle Induced X-rays Emission (PIXE) and Rutherford Backscattering (RBS) work done at Schonland Research Institute. There was also an introductory presentation on Quantum Chaos, Quantum Field Theory and High Spin States. A very interesting presentation was made on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). After the success of this school the organizers decided that the next Millennium School, which will be hosted by University of Zululand, would be held in 2004 at the Umfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal. ---------------------------------------------------- 8. Forthcoming Conferences, Workshops & Schools 8.1 Scanning Probe Microscopy Workshop, 5 & 6 Febraury 2002 Scientific research by leading microscopy specialists from Europe and South Africa will be featured in the Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) Workshop 2002, at the iThemba LABS (Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences) on Tuesday 5 February and Wednesday 6 February. Distinguished researchers, professors, technology developers, and outstanding graduate students from throughout the Cape area's academic and scientific communities will attend this critically-focused two-day conference. The welcoming address will be delivered by Prof John Sharpey-Schafer, Director of iThemba LABS. The official host for the SPM workshop is Dr Frank J Reineke, Founder and Director of Triple-O Microscopy GmbH of Potsdam, Germany. Coming to the Western Cape from Europe to be on the speaking agenda will be the scientists: * Dr Frank Bier of the Institute for Biomedicine Technology in Bergholz, Germany; * Mr Holger Breter, Manager of Life Sciences for Triple-O Microscopy in Potsdam; * Dr Teodor Gotszalk of the Technical University in Worclaw, Poland; * Dr Heinz Sturm of the Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing in Berlin; and * Dr Jens Ulbrich, a geologist and Customer Support Manager of Triple-O Microscopy. Representing the Cape's scientific community on the SPM Workshop programme will be: * Prof Jon Tapson of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Cape Town; * Ms Martina Meincken of the Polymer Institute of the University of Stellenbosch; and * Ms Lindi Vilakazi, Research Scientist at iThemba LABS. The eight comprehensive presentations will cover a wide range of Scanning Probe Microscopy reports including the extraordinary enhancement of SPM measurements; creative applications of SPM in the life sciences; unique material studies using SPM; and cutting-edge SPM implementation in electronics. Voted one of the top 100 young growth companies in Germany today, Triple-O designs and manufactures state-of-the-art scanning probe microscopes for highly precise nanotechnology research applications in the university, medical, and business sectors. For workshop registration and further information on "SPM 2002: Scanning the New Creativity" visit the iThemba LABS web site at www.nac.ac.za/materials/spm2002 or Triple-O's site at www.triple-o.de 8.2 IUPAP Women in Physics Conference, Paris (France) 7-9 March 2002 The third member of the South African team to the IUPAP Women in Physics Conference has finally been decided. Mmantsae Diale (Department of Physics, UP) has been awarded funding by the conference organisers and will be joining Elmarie Viljoen and Jaynie Padayachee for what promises to be 3 days of sharing ideas and experiences of women in physics from around the world. The team will be sharing what they learn with you in the next edition of the newsletter. ---------------------------------------------------- 9. Bursaries available 9.1 Postgraduate Studies – Physics, Potchefstroom University for CHE Bursaries are available for suitable candidates to enrol full time for a B.Sc. (Hons) or M.Sc. in Physics/ Astrophysics in 2002. These bursaries are partially sponsored by the National Research Foundation. Students should have completed a B.Sc. degree with Physics as one major and Maths up to 2nd year. For B.Sc. (Hons) eight papers are required. For an M.Sc. three additional papers are required, as well as a dissertation on a subject in Cosmic Ray Physics, Gamma-Ray Astronomy or Radio Astronomy. Full-time study for B.Sc. (Hons) takes at least one year. Depending on prior knowledge, students may be allowed to enrol for a two-year M.Sc. directly following a B.Sc. Requirements: Previous degree with 60% aggregate. Minimum bursary values: R18000 for B.Sc. (Hons), R21000 for M.Sc. (2nd year), both plus merit. Suitable applicants will be interviewed before a final selection is made, prior to the start of the academic programme in January 2002. To apply, send a complete academic record, the name and telephone number of two references, as well as a contact number to: The Director Unit for Space Physics School of Physics Potchefstroom University for CHE Private Bag X6001 Potchefstroom, 2520 Tel: (018) 299-2423 Fax: (018) 299-2421 E-mail: fskllr@puknet.puk.ac.za http://www.puk.ac.za/physics 9.2 Bursaries available at the Department of Physics, Randse Afrikaans University Various bursaries are available for students at honours, M.Sc. and Ph.D. level in both the fields of magnetism and photovoltaics. Information can be obtained from the head of department, Prof. V. Alberts tel: (011) 489 2844, fax: (100) 489 2339 or e-mail:va@na.rau.ac.za ---------------------------------------------------- The Editor Dr EC Viljoen Materials Research Group iThemba LABS POBox 722 -7129 SOMERSET WEST Phone: Int + (0)21 843 1153 Fax: Int + (0)21 843 3543 -- End --