Brightness Award

The Brightness Award, first awarded in 2003 recognizes and encourages innovative significant recent achievements in ion source physics and technology. It has become a prestigious award in the ion source community, honoring recipients for important contributions to our field.

We have a new Sponsor for the Brightness Award for this cycle. The Lanzhou Kejin Taiji New Technology Co., Ltd. has graciously offered to pick up the mantle of sponsorship following the long tenure of Bergoz Instrumentation. The Kejin Taiji Co., closely associated with the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou, China specializes in manufacture of accelerator components, including ion sources, RFQs, magnet and accelerator systems, and is developing and marketing a full carbon ion radiotherapy system. The details of the Brightness Award competition are given below, and are essentially similar to those of past cycles, though the criteria for the award are being slightly broadened.

Please note that due to the earlier date of this year’s ICIS Conference, the timetable for the Nomination submission and selection procedure must be accelerated, so do not delay in developing Nomination packages for this cycle.

PREVIOUS BRIGHTNESS AWARD WINNERS

2003: Edward Beebe and Alexander Pikin, Brookhaven; High-current, high-charge state EBIS
          for injection of ions including gold and uranium into the Brookhaven National Laboratory
          RHIC complex.

2005: E. D. Donets, D. E. Donets, E. E. Donets, and V. V. Salnikov, Dubna;
          Electron string source of highly charged ions

2007: Jens Peters, DESY; H- non cesiated volume source

2009: Claude Lyneis and Daniela Leitner, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and
          Hong-Wei Zhao and Zu-Qi Xie, Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou, China;
          Developments of superconducting, 3rd-generation ECR sources.

2011: Masahiro Okamura, Brookhaven; Direct Plasma Injection Heavy Ion Source (Gold Award);
          Mamiko Sasao, Tohoku University, Motoi Wada, Doshisha University, and Masashi Kisaki,
          National Institute of Fusion Sciences (Japan); High-intensity positive helium ion source
          as a novel diagnostic for ITER plasmas (Silver Award)

2013: Yuri Kudryavtsev, KU Leuven; Laser ionization spectroscopy

PURPOSE

The Ion Source Prize, named the “Brightness Award”, donated by LANZHOU KEJIN TAIJI Corporation Ltd, of Lanzhou, China, is intended to recognize and encourage innovative and significant recent achievements in the fields of ion source physics and technology. The Prize rewards a recent innovation in ion-source technology or theory, it is not a “career accomplishment” award.

AWARD

The prize consists of a certificate and US $3,000, to be presented at the ICIS 2015 International Conference on Ion Sources in New York, USA. The selection of the recipient(s) is made by the ICIS 2015 International Advisory Committee.

AWARD CRITERIA

The Ion Source Prize will be presented for an outstanding recent contribution to the fields of ion source physics and technology. This contribution could be a breakthrough idea in the understanding or design related to ion sources, or could be the ion source itself. The understanding, design, or ion source resulting from this contribution must be demonstrably capable of significantly improved levels of performance over the previous state-of-the-art. The contribution must have been published, and must be available to the community for application.

CRITERIA INTERPRETATION

Ion Source:

Definition: A device producing a beam of charged particles (protons or heavier) suitable for transport to an experimental setup (e.g. atomic-, surface- or cluster physics), or to an application, such as accelerator injection, ion implantation, fusion driver, ion propulsion, etc. Critical element is formation of a beam, rather than simply plasma generation.

Performance:

“Demonstrably capable of significantly improved … performance…” is best satisfied with actual measurements of improved performance: higher current, longer lifetime, better emittance or brightness, higher purity of desired ion; or for specialized sources, improved performance on the specific metrics required for this application. However, experimental demonstration is not absolutely required, if other factors clearly indicate that this contribution is of a break-through nature. Theoretical contributions are, again, best qualified if an experimental demonstration has been performed, but this is not absolutely necessary.

Publication:

The contribution should have been published in a journal or in proceedings of a conference that is in the public domain. Primary supporting publications should have been published within the past 7 years; not earlier than January 1, 2008 for this cycle. Laboratory design notes, internal technical notes, or other written material, do not qualify as primary references, but may be submitted to support other publications. Full and open disclosure is necessary to the extent that a potential user could clearly make use of the concept or source design for which the award is given. More than one article may be submitted (together) to satisfy this requirement; for example, an article describing the principle plus another article describing the performance.

ELIGIBILITY

Nominations are open to candidates of any nationality for work done at any geographical location. The award may be shared between (a maximum of three) persons contributing to the same accomplishment.

A nomination that was not selected for receiving the Award in a previous round can be updated and resubmitted for the present round, provided it complies with the Rules established for this round of the competition.

DISCLOSURE

The Prize Administrators may release the names of entrants and a list of publications related to an entry if requested by a third party. Unpublished supporting material will not be disclosed nor will the names of persons supporting a nomination. Discussion regarding individual entries, scoring, etc. is regarded as confidential and will not be disclosed.

NOMINATION AND SELECTION PROCESS

The nomination process will be conducted in two phases. A Preliminary Nomination can be submitted by any member of the Ion Source Community to the Prize Administrator, who will forward these to the International Advisory Committee (IAC) for evaluation.

The IAC will select from the Preliminary Nominations a slate of two or three candidates, and invite the nominator of the candidate to see to the preparation of a Full Nomination Package, following the rules and procedures outlined below.

The selection of the winning candidate will be made by the IAC, in a process conducted by e-mail, or if necessary by phone or video conference, managed by the Prize Administrator.

Preliminary Nomination:

The Preliminary Nomination shall consist of a one- or at most two-page document that makes the case for why this Nominee should receive the Award. It should include references to recent publications of the Nominee.

Full Nomination Package:

The Full Nomination package must be submitted by a professional (physicist, engineer or management person) familiar with the candidate(s) and his/her/their contribution, and can speak to the significance of the contribution. Every nomination must have a Sponsor who is a member of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) or the Scientific Program Committee (SPC) for this Conference cycle.

The nomination package shall include:

• A cover page including the name, title and affiliation of the candidate(s), a short title of the contribution for which the award is sought, and the list of relevant publications. Include on this page the name and contact information for both the Submitter of the nomination, and the IAC/SPC Sponsor.
• A statement, signed by the Submitter, describing the contribution of the Nominee to the physics or technology of the field.
• Full copies of relevant publications that have appeared in journals or widely-available conference proceedings. Note: Contributions to the present conference cannot serve as primary sources, as these proceedings have not yet been published.
• A signed statement of support by the Sponsor from IAC or SPC. (The statement is not necessary if the Sponsor is the Submitter.)

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

Preliminary Nomination:

The Preliminary Nomination can be submitted as an e-mail message, or as a .pdf attachment to an e-mail message, sent to the Prize Administrator:

Jose Alonso jralonso@lbl.gov

Full Nomination Package:

Only electronic submission will be accepted.

Documents must be in .pdf format (only!) and can be made either as e-mail attachments or as web downloads. The package must include all of the items listed above, including scans of the Submitter and Sponsor letters with signatures. Submitter must be available to work with the Prize Administrator to solve any formatting and transmission problems. Please note, all documents must be in .pdf format! Fax submissions will not be accepted.

Document files, or URL of download site, should be sent to:

Jose Alonso jralonso@lbl.gov

DEADLINES

Preliminary Nomination:

Deadline for submission of Preliminary Nominations is June 5th, 2015.

Notification of acceptance and invitation to submit Full Nomination Package will be made by June 15th, 2015.

Full Nomination Package:

Deadline for submission of Full Nomination Package is July 3rd, 2015.