Randolph S. Peterson
          The University of the South: Physics Department

Current and Future Research:

I am making and working with CVD diamonds of various carbon isotope ratios. I am interested in making and studying diodes and simple resistive detectors (for neutral and charged particles) from natural and man-made diamonds.  I intend to use these to replace equivalent silicon-based detectors in electron microscopes, x-ray diffractometers, and in accelerator experiments using Rutherford scattering and other phenomena.  I want to heavily involve my junior and senior physics majors in this research as the major part of their modern physics laboratory experiments, replacing some of the more traditional experiments with these more open-ended laboratories.

I am participating in development and testing of high throughput FTIR instruments with a group headed by Dr. Charles Pender, previously at AEDC.  Some of this research is done at the university and some is performed at AEDC.  Our interest is to improve FTIR camera speed, increase sensitivity and contrast (super-throughput) with good spectral discrimination.  I am also working with analysis of FTIR spectra of unstable IR-emitting sources (explosions).

Research Experience:

I have worked with lithium-drifted silicon detectors, intrinsic germanium detectors, surface barrier detectors (alpha and beta), bent and flat crystal Bragg spectrometers, 2 meter grazing-incidence vacuum ultraviolet spectrometer, 1 meter Seya-Namioka VUV spectrometer, and parallel-plate and cylindrical-mirror electron spectrometers, all used in conjunction with heavy-ion experiments conducted at various laboratories and on a variety of accelerators. I have designed and constructed a low-energy ion accelerator (to 5 keV) with an associated 16 ft. long time of flight spectrometer.  This apparatus is used to study doubly differential scattering cross sections in atomic, molecular, and solid targets.