Médaille Chevenard

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John Vickerman has been awarded the Médaille Pierre Chevenard by the Société Française de Métallurgie et de Matériaux (French Society for Metallurgy and Materials, SF2M). The award is made for his work in the development of Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and is the first time the medal has been awarded to someone outside France in over 40 years.

The Pierre Chevenard medal is awarded by SF2M, in principle every two years, to a French or foreign national who has made an outstanding contribution in the areas which distinguished Pierre Chevenard; scientific instrumentation and methods of characterizing materials.

Pierre Chevenard

Pierre Chevenard (1888-1960)
Member of the French Academy of Sciences and the founding father of the Precision Metallurgy

Chevenard held the Chair of Metallurgy at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines, Saint-Etienne and was elected member of the Academy of Sciences, Section of Applied Sciences in 1946.

He was Commander of the Legion of Honor.

He began in Imphy Steelworks, and ended his career as Scientific Director of Commentry-Fourchambault-Decazeville.

His outstanding work earned him special awards including entering the Academy of Sciences, chairing the Society of Civil Engineers, and membership of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (1951), vice-president of the Scientific Council ONERA, vice-president of the Society of the Mineral Industry and President of the French Society of Physics.

The award ceremony will take place in Paris on 30 October, 2012.

PhD position available – Filled

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This position has now been filled.

Advances in Bio-analytical Laser Ionisation Mass Spectrometry

The application of laser ionisation methods has revolutionised mass spectrometry, particularly in the biosciences. The focus of research in our group is the analysis and chemical imaging of complex surfaces including biological cells and tissue. We have pioneered the development and application of Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). This is a powerful surface analysis technique in which atomic and molecular species are ejected from sample surfaces using a highly focused high-energy ion beam. The ejected ions can be subjected to mass spectrometry directly, building up a chemical image as the ion beam is scanned across the surface. However, the majority of the chemical information is contained in the ejected neutral species, which must be ‘post-ionised’ prior to mass spectrometric detection. This post-ionisation step is most effectively performed with a high power pulsed laser. The investigation and optimization of this laser post-ionisation process is of interest from a fundamental and applied view.

The aim of this project is to study the laser post-ionisation characteristics of a series of molecules of significant biological interest including drugs and metabolites to provide the optimum route for their sensitive detection and imaging in medical and biological research.

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MeV-SIMS Workshop

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Alex gave an invited presentation at the Joint IAEA-SPIRIT-Japan Technical Meeting on Development and Utilization of MeV-SIMS held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, 21-25 May 2012.

The meeting was to determine the scope and prospects for the emerging MeV-SIMS technique and the outcome was very positive.

The presentation covered factors that influence the form of a Static SIMS spectrum and various issues that may arise in its interpretation and can be found here.