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Pulsed Power and Plasma Science Conference (PPPS-2007), a combination
of the 16th Biennial IEEE International Pulsed Power Conference
and the 34th Annual IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science,
took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 17-22, 2007. The 2007
Symposium on Fusion Engineering collocated with the PPPS-2007 Conference.
A registrant to either conference (the registration fees were identical)
had access to all technical sessions in both conferences. The poster
sessions were held jointly as well.
The General Chair of PPPS-2007 was Professor Edl Schamiloglu from
the University of New Mexico and the Technical Program Chair was
Dr. Frank Peterkin from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren
Division. Professor John Gaudet of the University of New Mexico
was the Treasurer and Mr. Charles Reuben of the University of New
Mexico was the Conference Secretary.
There were almost 1200 registrants at the PPPS-2007 Conference,
of which 455 were from outside the US. The distribution of foreign
registrants is shown in the chart on the following page. After the
US, the greatest number of registrants were from South Korea (73),
followed by Japan (56), the Russian Federation (48), the United
Kingdom (48), France (40), and China (36). The European registrants
(including the Russian Federation) totaled 207, while the Asia/Pacific
registrants totaled 209 (including Australia).
Over 900 presentations were made across 7 plenary sessions, 54 oral
sessions (6 parallel oral sessions over four and one-half days),
and 5 poster sessions. There were no competing oral sessions during
the poster sessions.
The PPPS-2007 organizers set aside $20,000 to support student travel
to the conference. The organizers express their gratitude to Dr.
John Luginsland (NumerEx) for organizing the selection of the student
travel grant awardees.
Since the PPPS-2007 conference is a combination of two IEEE NPSS
conferences, four Best Student Presentation awards were given (described
in the Awards section of this Newsletter). The PPPS-2007 organizers
thank Dr. Dave Abe of NRL for organizing the process and selecting
the travel grant awardees.
The PPPS-2007 Exhibitors’ Program was directed by Darryl Droemer
(NSTech/Sandia National Laboratories). There were 49 booths occupied
by 46 vendors in the NE Exhibit Hall of the Albuquerque Convention
Center (shared space with the poster session and cyber café).
Several of the vendors came from Europe to exhibit at this conference.
The PPPS-2007 Companion Program was organized by Mrs. Judy Gilman
and was open to companions of both PPST and SOFE conference registrants.
On Monday the companions took a tour of the Utility Shack and learned
about Native American jewelry. They were then given a walking tour
of Old Town in Albuquerque. On Tuesday the companions were given
a tour of Acoma Pueblo. On Wednesday they visited Santa Fe and the
Georgia O’Keefe Museum. On Thursday the companions toured
the art collection of the beautiful Hyatt Regency Tamaya Spa and
Resort and spent a leisurely afternoon. The Conference Organizers
thank Judy for the wonderful job she did in organizing the Companion
Program. Each of the four days was well attended.
The conference registration opened on Sunday afternoon June 17,
followed by a Welcome Reception on Sunday evening (joint reception
with SOFE). The New Mexico Woodwind Quintet performed during the
reception.
The Conference technical program opened on Monday morning with a
SuperPlenary Session. Three plenary addresses were presented on
Monday morning to a combined audience of PPPS-2007 and SOFE-2007
registrants. The first speaker was Dr. Keith Matzen, Director of
the Pulsed Power Sciences Center at Sandia National Laboratories,
whose address on Pulsed Power activities at Sandia focused on the
refurbishment of the Z-accelerator. The second speaker, representing
the ICOPS community, was Dr. Andrew Ng of Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, whose address described recent advances in warm, dense
matter. The final speaker, representing the SOFE community, was
Mr. Brad Nelson of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His address described
the engineering challenges of the ITER Joint International Tokamak
project.
On Monday evening Kelly Hahn of Sandia National Laboratories organized
a Women in Pulsed Power and Plasma Science Reception. All women
registrants were given a ticket and the remaining tickets were distributed
to conference registrants on a first-come-first-served basis. Kelly
invited Dr. Joan Woodard, Executive Vice President of Sandia National
Laboratories, to give a brief presentation at the reception. (Kelly
describes this event in a brief article following this report).
There was a Special Evening Forum on Monday entitled: National Academies
Plasma 2010 Open Forum. This forum was organized by Professor Steven
Cowley of UCLA, co-chair of the National Academies Panel whose report
was just released in June. Professor Mark Kushner (Iowa State) discussed
the low-temperature plasma portion of the report.
Tuesday morning opened with a Joint Plenary Session with SOFE. Dr.
Ed Moses of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory presented an
address describing progress on completion of the National Ignition
Facility (NIF), as well as the National Ignition Campaign. Following
the Plenary, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez paid an impromptu visit
and welcomed the conference attendees to his city. Mayor Chavez
spoke of Albuquerque’s past, with the city having celebrated
its Tricentennial in 2006. He also spoke of Albuquerque’s
future, with national laboratories, high tech industry and a growing
film industry joining forces to lead the economic engine of the
future.
Tuesday evening was the Night Out at the Rio Grande Zoo, joint with
SOFE. The weather was perfect and the conference registrants were
entertained by the Salsa Band Café Mocha. Registrants also
had an opportunity to tour the Zoo exhibits, which were open only
to the PPPS-2007 and SOFE Conference registrants.
Wednesday morning opened with the PSAC Award Lecture by the 2007
recipient of the award, Prof. Yitzhak Maron of the Weizmann Institute
of Science. His lecture was entitled Interaction of Plasmas with
Pulsed Magnetic Fields: What Can We Learn from the Field Measurements?
On Wednesday evening the PPPS-2007 Conference hosted a Members Only
Reception. All IEEE members were provided a ticket to this event.
The purpose of this reception was to allow IEEE members an opportunity
to meet with other members, and encourage Senior Membership and
Fellow Nominations. There were over 350 members attending this reception.
Drs. Jim Benford and John Swegle organized a Special Wednesday Evening
Forum entitled: High Power Microwaves: Where do we go from here?
The organizers invited Dr. Kirk Hackett (Chief Scientist, Air Force
Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Microwaves Directorate), Dr.
Tom Hussey (Chief Scientist, Air Force Office of Scientific Research),
Professor Andreas Neuber (Texas Tech University), and Academician
Michael Yalandin (Institute of Electrophysics, Ekaterinburg, Russia)
to present their views of the future in this field. The room was
overflowing with over 80 interested audience members. The panelists
fielded questions following their presentations.
The Thursday morning plenary was the Erwin Marx Award Lecture by
the 2007 recipient, Dr. David L. Johnson (L-3 Communications, retired
from Sandia National Laboratories). His lecture was entitled From
Hermes I to ZR: Forty One Years of Pulsed Power.
The PPPS-2007 Awards Banquet took place Thursday evening. The New
Mexico Woodwind Quintet entertained the attendees during the reception.
Following the banquet the Conference Awards were formally presented
to all of the recipients (see the photos and bios for all the award
recipients in the Awards portion of the Newsletter). The evening
closed with a spirited presentation of future ICOPS, Power Modulator,
and Pulsed Power Conferences.
The Friday morning plenary was the Peter Haas Award Lecture by the
2007 recipient, Professor Karl H. Schoenbach (Old Dominion University).
His lecture was entitled Bioelectrics – Using Nanosecond Pulsed
Power Technology to Control Biological Cell Functions.
It was a pleasure to find all 6 oral sessions on Friday 5 PM to
be filled with conference participants.
All conference registrants will have an opportunity to submit papers
that will be published in the Proceedings of the PPPS-2007 Conference.
In addition, two Special Issues of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma
Science will be derived from papers presented at this conference.
The first is the Special Issue on Plenary and Invited talks from
PPPS-2007, edited by Mounir Laroussi (Old Dominion University),
Frank Hegeler (Naval Research Laboratory) and XinPei Lu (HuaZhong
University of Science and Technology), which will be published in
April 2008. The second is the Special Issue on Pulsed Power Science
and Technology, edited by Bryan Oliver (Sandia National Laboratories),
Frank Peterkin (Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division),
and Randy Curry (University of Missouri-Columbia), which will be
published October 2008.
The Minicourse associated with the PPPS-2007 Conference was organized
by Professor Mark Gilmore (University of New Mexico) and Mr. Dan
Jobe (Ktech Corporation). The Minicourse, entitled Diagnostics for
High Density Plasmas and Pulsed Power Systems, was attended by 60
participants and took place Friday and Saturday. The Minicourse
dinner was hosted by the High Finance Restaurant atop Sandia Peak.
Registrants took the Sandia Peak Tram for their 20 minute flight
to dinner.
A special workshop was organized by Professor Martin Gundersen of
USC that was entitled Writing for and Working with the Film Industry:
An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. This workshop was
open to registrants of PPPS-2007, SOFE, and the IEEE Particle Accelerator
Conference (which took place the week following PPPS-2007). Two
prominent Hollywood insiders ran the workshop, Syd Field, known
for writing the “Bible” of screenwriting, and Alex Singer,
a prominent Director known for several movies and numerous Star
Trek: The Next Generation episodes. Over 70 registrants participated
in this Saturday workshop, part of IEEE NPSS’s Weekend of
Science outreach to K-12 in Albuquerque and the greater New Mexico
community (see Sal Portillo’s article describing this event).
The PPPS-2007 Organizers thank the scientific community for their
participation in the conference and look forward to seeing their
friends and colleagues at the next ICOPS (Karlsruhe, Germany June
15-19 2008, organized by Professor Manfred Thumm, KFK) and at the
next Pulsed Power Conference (Washington, DC June 29-July 2, 2009,
organized by Dr. Frank Peterkin, NSWC Dahlgren Division).
Edl Schamiloglu can be reached at the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering MSC01 11001 Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque,
NM 87131-000; Phone:+1505-277-4423; Fax: +1 505-277-1439; E-mail:
edl@ece.unm.edu.
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