In Memoriam

May 5, 2020 (PO73). Dr. Kamel Salama, 87, Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston, died Friday, 12 July 2019 at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, TX following an extended illness.

He leaves his wife of 48 years, Gwendolyn (Doucet), his daughter, Emilie Hudson and her husband Adam Hudson, his son, Joseph Salama and his wife April (Scott) Salama, his two sisters, Dawlat and Faika, and many close friends. He was the beloved Giddo to his four grandchildren, Evangeline and Addison Hudson, and Garrett and Maximilian Salama.

Born in Souhag, Egypt, he studied Physics and Mathematics at Cairo University, where he received his doctorate. Following research appointments at Uppsala University, Sweden and the Ford Scientific Laboratory, Dearborn, Michigan, he joined Rice University as a Research Scientist. As his career expanded and included the training of young scientists, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, where he led an active research program and taught for over 35 years. Shortly after joining the faculty at U of H, he established the Materials Engineering Program, which he directed his entire career. He mentored more than 60 Masters and Doctoral candidates. He received the Engineering Faculty Research Excellence Award, chaired international conferences, was chosen as an Honorary Fellow of the International Congress on Fracture, and was frequently invited to speak and teach internationally. Kamel advanced the scientific literature of materials, and was awarded 10 patents. He quietly influenced the work and discovery of many young scientists.

Dr. Salama had limitless passion for science, his family, and his friends. He was an early immigrant from Egypt to Houston and welcomed many who came after. Throughout his life, he traveled tirelessly, setting foot on six continents. He was one of the first members of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Houston and was always an active member of the community. He shared his life with generosity of spirit.

April 13, 2020. Al was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was the youngest son of Fred and Martha Clark. Al received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin and his PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Michigan. He moved to Boulder in 1964 to pursue post-doctoral studies at the Bureau of Standards, now NIST. A cryogenic and materials physicist, Alan was with NIST, in both the Boulder and Washington DC labs, from 1964 -2004. He held several positions there, published over 150 papers and held one patent, and worked in a collaborative capacity in England for several years. He was inducted into the NIST Portrait Gallery. Following his retirement from the federal government, he served as chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado – Denver.

Al received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin and his PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Michigan. He moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1964 to pursue post-doctoral studies at the Bureau of Standards, now NIST. A cryogenic and materials physicist, Alan was with NIST, in both the Boulder and Washington DC labs, from 1964 -2004. He held several positions there, published over 150 papers and held one patent, and worked in a collaborative capacity in England for several years. He was inducted into the NIST Portrait Gallery. Following his retirement from the federal government, he served as chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado - Denver.

Al was the first chair of the IEEE Superconductivity Committee, the predecessor of the IEEE Council on Superconductivity. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity from 1994 to 1997. He was a founder and past Chairman, International Cryogenic Materials Conferences (1975-1987). Al was a member of the board of directors of the Applied Superconductivity Conference and served as Chairman of the 1990 Applied Superconductivity Conference held in Snowmass, CO. He was a prolific author with over 150 peer reviewed papers.

Hans-Georg Meyer Passed Away

January 4, 2019 (PO68). Prof. Hans-Georg Meyer, one of the European leaders in the field of applied superconductivity, tragically passed away on December 25th, 2018 at the age of 69 after a three-month fight for his life.

In 1973 he received his undergraduate diploma in physics from the Friedrich-Schiller-University (FSU) of Jena (Germany) in 1973 and his PhD in physics at the same university in 1981. From 1981 until 1993 Hans-Georg worked at the Institute of Solid-State Physics at the University of Jena. In 1985 he became Head of the Superconductor Theory group at that University. In his early career, he focused on the behavior dynamics of Josephson junctions under microwave radiation. These results made important contributions to the voltage standard in metrology. In particular, he made key contributions to voltage standard circuits based on Josephson tunnel junctions, which remain one of the successful applications of superconducting technologies originating from Jena.

In 1988, Hans-Georg earned his Facultas docendi and in 1991 his Habilitation (venia legendi) at the University of Jena. In 2009, the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena appointed him Professor Extraordinary for Applied Physics/Solid State Physics.

In 1993 he became Head of the Research Department of Cryoelectronics, later named Quantum Detection, at the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT), Jena, Germany. Together with Prof. Hoenig and with the support of Prof. Christoph Heiden from the University of Giessen (Germany), he developed the new research field of Cryoelectronics at Leibniz-IPHT, organized as a joint research focus by IPHT and the University of Jena, Siemens AG, PTB Braunschweig, and Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH.

Hans-Georg, a very capable physicist with a broad theoretical background, devoted himself to basic research topics as well as to the transfer of research results into high sensitivity-tailored instruments and their application for everyday use. He laid the foundation for the application of SQUID sensors to exploration of natural resources, quantum-limited radiation detectors, such as the passive THz safety camera, that is applicable for standoff detection of hidden weapons and explosives and quantum technologies. These activities prospered and grew in the Leibniz IPHT under his leadership. In the past few years, he supported the research on thermal sensors which were developed and produced in his department and are now a reliable component in numerous NASA and ESA space missions.

As Head of the Quantum Detection Department at the Leibniz IPHT, he played a decisive role in shaping the research profile and strategic orientation of the Institute, especially in 2005, when he focused on photonic technologies. In particular, he supported research in the field of micro- and nanotechnologies and the establishment of the clean room which, under his leadership, developed into a technological core competency of IPHT. The research results in this area have often been published in high-impact journals, are internationally recognized and have played a significant part in the excellent status of the Leibniz-IPHT.

In 2001, he co-founded Supracon AG, a spin-off company from the Department of Quantum Detection at Leibniz-IPHT and thereby helped to bring SQUID magnetometry and Josephson Voltage Standards into successful industrial applications. After his retirement from the Leibniz-IPHT in 2017, he joined Supracon AG as Head of Business Development.

Hans-Georg served the research community of applied superconductivity as member of the Advisory Committee of the International Workshop on Low-Temperature Electronics (WOLTE), as a member of the Program Committee of Applied Superconductivity Conference (ASC), and as a member of the Scientific Committee of National Conference “Kryoelektronische Bauelemente (KRYO)” in Germany. He devoted substantial time to the European Association for Superconductor Electronics (FLUXONICS) as long-standing Vice Chairman.

Hans-Georg Meyer was honored with prizes for his outstanding achievements in the research field of applied superconductivity. These include the "International Mining Research Award" and the "Thüringer Forschungspreis" in the category "Applied Research".

In his private life, Hans-Georg was dedicated to German history and, in particular, of the provinces Saxonia, Thuringia and his home region “Vogtland” and took great interest in the preservation of his mother dialect spoken in this region. He was a great lover and connoisseur of classical music with a special interest in Baroque music, e.g. Bach, and took great pleasure in researching the origins of names (Onomastics) and their distribution within Germany.

Hans-Georg is survived by his son Matthias and his wife Ning, the two grandchildren Luke and Mathilde, his current life partner, Beate Pommer, and relatives. He also leaves behind many old companions with whom he jointly walked the path throughout their professional careers, many old and new colleagues, scientific and business partners, and friends from all over the world.

Dr. Ronny Stolz, Leibnitz Institute of Photonic Technology Jena

Prof. Dr. Michael Siegel, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

December 19, 2018. Kyoji Tachikawa was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. He received his BEng (1950) and Dr. Eng. (1961), both on Permanent Magnets, from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo, and joined the scientific staff of the University of Tokyo as a research associate in 1954. His first scientific papers date back to that year and refer to cold working studies of permanent magnet alloys and later on to high-C and high-Zr steels. In 1962 Tachikawa moved to the National Research Institute of Metals (NRIM) in Tsukuba, where he spent almost his entire scientific career until his “first” official retirement in 1987. He began there as the Head of the Electric and Magnetic Materials Laboratory in 1962, became Director of the Electric and Magnetic Materials Division in 1974, Director of the Superconducting and Cryogenic Materials Division in 1980, and Director of the entire Tsukuba Laboratories in 1985.

His first paper on superconducting materials appeared in 1964 and dealt with the Nb-Zr system. Only three years later he developed V₃Ga tapes with a very attractive high-field performance using Cu as a catalyst for the diffusion reaction. Again, three years later, he made an epoch-making invention of the so-called bronze process enabling the production of multifilamentary type V₃Ga conductors starting from V/Cu-Ga composites. He constructed the first magnet wound from multifilamentary type A-15 conductors in 1974, which was quite stable under time-varying fields. The bronze process was then successfully applied to the production of multifilamentary Nb₃Sn conductors, a workhorse for present-day high-field applications of superconductivity. The next seminal improvement came in 1982 when he developed Nb₃Sn conductors, doped by a few at% of Ti, which is incorporated into the Nb₃Sn layer and enhances the upper critical field from 20 to 25 T at 4.2 K by the mean-free-path effect. These materials are being used for one of the most demanding magnets ever designed, i.e. the toroidal field coils of the ITER nuclear fusion device.

After his retirement from the Tsukuba Laboratories, Tachikawa started his second career as a full professor at the Faculty of Engineering of Tokai University in April 1987. Substantial improvements of the A-15’s by new processing techniques, the development of other high-field superconductors, such as V₂Hf, the development of ultra-thin filaments for ac applications, substantial contributions to the processing of Bi and Tl-based high temperature superconductors, and finally research on the enhancement of critical currents in MgB₂ superconductors represent the highlights of Tachikawa’s work in “retirement”.

Professor Tachikawa’s scientific achievements are documented by four books and the editing of seven conference proceedings, around 400 scientific publications in refereed journals (among them 47 in CEC/ICMC Proceedings), and frequent seminar and conference presentations all around the world. He spent sabbaticals at the Francis Bitter National Magnet Lab at MIT, the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Numerous awards and honors bear testimony of the esteem and the international reputation gained by Tachikawa over the years, among them numerous best paper awards from the Japan Institute of Metals and from ICMC, the National Decoration from the Emperor of Japan in 1997, and the Prize for Distinguished Achievements in Research from the Cryogenic Society in Japan in May 2008. In 2000, along with Prof. David Larbalestier, he was one of the first two recipients of the award for lifetime achievement in Materials from the IEEE Council on Superconductivity Additionally, in 2009, Prof. Tachikawa was the third ever recipient of the ICMC Lifetime Achievement Award. The citation read: “The Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding work and contributions to the science and technology of superconducting materials achieved during a distinguished career is presented to Kyoji Tachikawa”.

August 29, 2018 (PO66).  Roger Wright Boom died on August 8, 2018, in La Jolla, California, following a long bout with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 95 years old at the time of his death.

Roger was born in 1923 to Frank and Gladys Boom, in Bladen, Nebraska. He attended grade school and high school in Bladen and then attended the University of Nebraska, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics in 1944, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Mu Epsilon, and Sigma Xi. He was then a research associate in the Harvard Underwater Sound Research Lab. He joined the Navy in 1945 and taught electronics at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.

He continued his education after WWII at University of Minnesota (M.S.-1950). In 1951 he married LaVerne Backdahl. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics at UCLA in 1958. Along with Profs. Kenneth R Mackenzie, Byron T. Wright, other graduate students and technicians, Roger helped bring up the new UCLA 49 inch cyclotron. He then did post-doctoral research at the University of Bonn for two years before joining Oak Ridge National Lab in 1960. In 1963 he returned to California to work for Atomics International where he received the prestigious IR100 award for his work in cryogenics and superconductivity.

In 1968 Roger joined the faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There he continued his research in cryogenics and superconductivity and established the Applied Superconductivity Center which is now located at Florida State University in Tallahassee. His projects included early work in Superconductive Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES), a development of his and his longtime collaborator and friend, Professor Harold Peterson. Numerous researchers and leaders in the field today were doctoral candidates and postdocs in this program. He retired and became Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 1993. In July 1993, the Cryogenic Engineering Conference presented Boom with the Samuel C. Collins Award for outstanding contributions to cryogenic technology.

Roger was awarded 12 patents, primarily in the design of systems for cryogenic superconductivity.

Recognizing his accomplishments and his keen interest in nurturing new talent in the field, the Cryogenic Society of America established the Roger W. Boom Award in 2008. It is awarded biannually to a young professional who “shows promise for making significant contributions to the fields of cryogenic engineering and applied superconductivity.” The spirit of the R.W. Boom Award is to recognize young people for their pursuit of excellence, demonstration of high standards and clear communications.

During his tenure at UW he received the Byron Bird Award from the School of Engineering in 1986.

Roger was an avid golfer and was a member of Blackhawk Country Club while living in Madison. He continued to play golf in retirement, and would often frustrate younger players on the course with his capacity to chip accurately and usually leave only a short putt.

Roger’s love for the quest of knowledge was indeed tangible, including support for family members’ education, and the establishment of a scholarship fund through the University of Wisconsin Foundation for both men and women pursuing advanced degrees in Engineering. He and LaVerne were members of the Bascom Hill Society.

As Roger lost ground to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease, he was fortunate and very appreciative to have the assistance of his grandniece Jennifer (McKenzie) Mannino living nearby as he progressed from independent living and playing golf to becoming a resident in the dementia care unit at White Sands of La Jolla. Her frequent visits, car trips, attention, and companionship helped him enjoy as much as possible those years, as he remained sociable, affable, and never faltered before a good meal with good company.

Roger died without issue, and was preceded in death by his wife LaVerne Boom in 2001; his parents, Frank and Gladys Boom; his sister, Lurye McKenzie, and his brother-in-law and high school physics teacher, Ronald J. McKenzie, Jr. He is survived by nephews, Ronald (Margot) McKenzie III, and Rodney (Paula) McKenzie, as well as nieces, Roine (Chas) Thomsen, and Marilyn Calhoun, and nephew Gary Ripley, as well as grandnieces and grandnephews.

Interment was August 13, 2018, at El Camino Memorial Park in San Diego, CA, beside his beloved wife, LaVerne.

Contributors: Steve van Sciver, Peter Lee, David Larbalestier, Bruce Strauss, and Rodney McKenzie

After an extended period of declining health, William “Bill” R. Shields passed away on Friday, July 13, 2018 at age 82, surrounded by his family at the end.

William “Bill” Shields co-founded Janis Research, a cryogenic equipment manufacturing company, in 1960. From then until his retirement in February 2009, Shields was a familiar face in the cryogenic industry. He was a long-time member of the Advisory Committee of the Corporate Associates of the American Institute of Physics. He was also a member of the “CryoMafia” for over twenty years.

August 7, 2018. With a B.S. in Physics, Magna Cum Laude, from Fordham University, a Ph.D. in Physics from the Johns Hopkins University and several years teaching at the University of Cincinnati, “Doc” Bedard was recruited by NSA in 1955, based on his graduate work in superconductivity, to participate in Project LIGHTNING. Project LIGHTNING was a program to explore multiple technologies aimed at achieving three orders of magnitude improvement in compute power for large scale processors. Although the superconducting approach being pursued at the time, cryotrons, did not prove to be the solution, his work on this program launched Dr. Bedard on a long and distinguished career in superconductivity, ranging from fundamental studies in materials and phenomena to a myriad of applications for computing and ultra-sensitive detectors.

Beyond his early cryotron work, Dr. Bedard had a major impact on several other significant programs to harness superconductivity for computing applications. He was the prime government force behind a joint IBM/NSA program to use Josephson Junctions as a basic switching element. It demonstrated the Josephson Junction’s expected high speed and low power advantages for logic applications. Doc was also a key participant in a joint government/university/industry program in the 1990s, Hybrid Technology MultiThreaded (HTMT) architecture, which sought to achieve major advances in compute power through several emerging technologies, with superconductivity playing a major part in several of them. Never one to simply be an observer, Doc continued his personal technical efforts, designing and having a prototype built of a revolutionary CROSSBAR SWITCH to provide low latency processor/memory interconnect, an essential element in a full superconducting high-performance computer.

Another area in which Doc Bedard exploited the characteristics of superconductors was in Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) for ultra-sensitive measurement of atmospheric noise at low frequencies. After fielding in far-flung reaches of the earth, including on an ice flow north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, Doc concluded that, in most areas of the globe, SQUID sensitivity was greater than needed. Once again he went into personal contributor mode, designing and building a non-superconductor, high sensitivity, three axes “CUBE” antenna, which is compact, easily deployable and atmospherically noise-limited in the low-frequency range.

For these accomplishments and many more, Doc Bedard received many awards and much recognition, best summed up in his being awarded the IEEE Medal for Accomplishments in Superconductive Electronics.

In addition to his significant personal technical accomplishments, Doc Bedard continually played a leadership role at NSA, serving as Director of the Laboratory for Physical Sciences and Director of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Research. Through these Management positions, he was able to leverage his technical skills and experience over a wide range of basic and applied research activities. These leadership activities dovetailed well with another enduring area in which Doc Bedard’s influence and efforts will be felt for decades, the development of NSA’s technical talent. As a founding member of the Senior Technical Review Panel (STRP) which provides oversight to NSA’s most senior technical development program, Doc coached, mentored and advised NSA’s “best and brightest”. Several generations of Agency technical leaders who have benefitted mightily from his dedicated and caring efforts are now playing key roles in ensuring NSA’s future success. Many others in the superconductivity community and beyond have also benefitted from his leadership and mentoring.

May 1, 2018 (PO64). Vincenzo (Enzo) Palmieri, Research Director at Legnaro National Laboratories of INFN (LSC Group) and Director of the innovative Master in Surface Treatments for Industrial Applications of the University of Padua, passed away on March 16th, 2018.

Enzo was one of the most active members of the community of Superconducting RF for accelerators: after graduating cum laude in Physics at the University of Naples Federico II and training at CERN as a technical student, he was hired by INFN in Legnaro, where he developed the techniques to sputter quarter-wave cavities for the accelerator ALPI. Working in the field of SRF technologies for more than 30 years, he was the inventor of several techniques that have been real breakthroughs in the field of Superconducting RF, such as the fabrication of seamless cavities by spinning and the chemical treatments with ionic liquids and without hydrofluoric acid, to reduce cost and environmental impact of the treatments. He dedicated his professional career to improve the performances of superconducting cavities, investigating and giving his fundamental contribution on many topics: from Nb thin film to Nb thick film on copper, from A15 materials to atmospheric plasma treatments, from the influence of sputtering geometry on superconducting thin films to the study of the role of interfaces in the SRF properties. Moreover, he developed high power targets for the production of biomedical radioisotopes and was a pioneer in technological transfer within the collaborations between INFN and industries.

Enzo was the author of more than 280 publications and 3 patents and was the supervisor of more than 100 PhD and Master’s degree theses. Appointed Professor at the University of Padua where he taught Superconducting Materials and Vacuum Techniques, he was also the Responsible of the Material Science and Technologies for Nuclear Physics Service at LNL-INFN, where he had been training generations of scientists.

His family, a large community of colleagues, and friends will always remember him for his outstanding, peerless and eclectic personality.

Today his research group at LNL is honored to carry on his scientific legacy.

January 24, 2018 (PO63). Meyer Garber, a long time staff member of Brookhaven National Laboratory, passed away peacefully on December 14, 2017, at the age of 89. After obtaining a doctorate from the University of Illinois he won a Fulbright scholarship to study in Holland. He spent some time as an academic at the Michigan State University. In the 1960s he joined Brookhaven National Laboratory where he worked on low-temperature physics and superconducting magnets for more than thirty years. At Brookhaven, he worked with Bill Sampson and others in characterizing Rutherford cables and in magnet design. His work continued through the Superconducting Collider era.

He is remembered as a mentor and friend by many world-wide colleagues in the superconductivity community. Lucio Rossi of CERN still uses planning graphs of critical current and load lines in lectures he gives on the history of superconductivity. Rossi noted that Garber helped INFN-Genova and INFN-Milano-LASA establish a multi kA test facility for Rutherford Cables. Steve Gourlay of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory cites the mentoring that Meyer did with him on a long-distance basis regarding magnets and conductors including Nb₃Sn.

Peter Wanderer, Lucio Rossi, Steve Gourlay and Bruce Strauss

Meyer’s Life

In 1945 Meyer had a Fulbright scholarship to work at the great Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory at Leiden in the Netherlands, the birthplace of superconductivity and liquid helium research. It is not surprising that he chose to work in the field of cryogenics and superconductivity after that!

In the mid 1960’s, His good friend Myron Strongin persuaded him to leave Michigan State University and come to Brookhaven National Lab, where he assured Meyer there would be more opportunity to do his own research, and for some time Meyer did work on his own low-temperature experiments, he also collaborated with Myron Strongin and others. His research focused on methods of using liquid helium for superconductor cooling. When the BNL superconducting transmission line project for D.O.E. was set up, Meyer was asked to work on it, and he served for some time as deputy manager for Eric Forsyth. His contributions to the work included several patents for low-loss conductors.

Later, he continued his work on the science, design, and testing of superconducting wires and magnets with Bill Sampson, at Isabelle, the AGS and in later years, at RHIC. Wires tested by the BNL group were used in magnets for the BNL accelerators, but also HERA, and the LHC at CERN, among others. In 1979, Meyer was part of a BNL team that visited labs in Russia and Ukraine, and he later visited Brazil to explore BNL sources for Niobium.

After retiring in 1993, he continued working with Bill Sampson as a guest scientist until he moved to California to be near his daughter and grandchildren in 2014.

Meyer grew up during the depression in Philadelphia. His parents could not afford much for their children. Meyer and his sister both made their own way by winning scholarships and showing amazing determination to learn about all the fine and wonderful things of life.  Meyer was very much an autodidact. He had an admirable enthusiasm for new experiences, and one of the things he taught himself to do was sailing – his great solace in later years. Music was his great love, but as he grew old, a cruel deafness deprived him of his ability to distinguish pitch, so he could no longer hear the music. Meyer had a great sense of humor and loved the good things of life – food, wine, music, great books, and most of all - good friends.

Alison Garber

January 29, 2018 (PO62). James Emery Nordman, Professor of Electrical Engineering and IEEE Member passed away on 21 November 2017 at age 83. Jim was born in Quinnesec in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He graduated from Marquette University in 1957 and received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1962. He then joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Jim was associate chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department for several years, a founding member of the Material Science Advisory Committee, and an active participant of the Applied Superconductivity Conference.

During his 34 years at UW–Madison, he initiated and taught many subjects and built extensive thin-film laboratory facilities for fabrication and study of superconductor-based devices. Jim, in collaboration with his graduate students and colleagues, made extensive advances in superconducting technology, both in low-temperature and high-temperature superconductivity and on the fabrication of thin-film devices utilizing state of the art techniques. He spent two years on separate leaves of absence from UW–Madison to further his professional work. He conducted research in Princeton, NJ at David Sarnoff Research Laboratories of RCA, and in 1972 he took his family of eight to Grenoble France for a year in which he worked at L’Air Liquide. Jim retired from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1996.

Jim was a creative engineer, an experimentalist, and a soft-spoken teacher. He seemed to have immense patience and inexhaustible time to listen to and guide his graduate students in their endeavors. His unconventional approach of encouraging his students to freely select their research areas prepared them for successful careers in their professions. Some went on to establishing a superconductive electronics center which is currently part of a premier government lab for fabrication of superconducting circuits. Others participated in founding what is believed to be the first successful commercial company for the advancement of thin film and superconducting electronics. His guidance and engineering insight became invaluable to his students in the industry in their quests to expand the boundaries of conventional electronics and successful introduction of superconducting electronics into the commercial marketplace.

Jim’s disposition of embracing new research territories and ideas is what led him to superconducting electronics from his early work on semiconducting devices and circuits. His entry into Josephson effect research at UW gained Jim and his colleagues' national attention when they published their research finding on parallels of wave propagation on superconducting transmission lines to brain waves. To Jim’s amusement, a few custodians of the engineering building petitioned him to be the first recipients of his “engineered brain.”

In his spare time, Jim enjoyed tinkering with old cars, playing music and performing choral singing; he was a talented musician. In retirement, he was able to focus on his 1941 Lincoln Zephyr convertible—giving him pleasure, challenges, and more good friendships. His quiet manner and humble approach were enjoyed by friends, colleagues, and students.
Jim is survived by his wife Clare and their six children, 13 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren, and by numerous students whom he mentored as engineers, researchers, teachers, and entrepreneurs. He will be dearly missed for his sense of humor, patience while teaching, fatherly winks and, always, a ready smile.

Masoud Radparvar, Gert Hohenwarter, and Cathy Nordman

In the 1980s I was a graduate student at UW–Madison working in Steve Van Sciver’s helium cryogenics lab. Needing a thin film lab to make temperature sensors for my experiments, I approached Jim Nordman and was welcomed into his lab. There I learned much from fellow students as we worked to make films and devices from sometimes old and finicky equipment. One learning experience occurred when I was working on an evaporator. While turning a bolt, the wrench touched something that produced sparks and a bang and shut down all power to the lab. Professor Nordman came out of his office and marched me down to the breaker room so we could restore power, along the way making it clear with one comment and just the slightest hint of annoyance that in the future I was to make absolutely sure the power was off before working on equipment. I consider part of Jim’s legacy that I am still alive and working in superconductor electronics.

The last correspondence I had with Jim was after the 2011 EUCAS centennial of superconductivity held in The Netherlands. I wanted to let him know that I was still active in superconductor electronics and that superconducting computing was again under active development. I also sent him a photo I took at the conference of a presentation referencing his work on Nb/a-Ge/Nb published in 1972. He was happy to receive it and we spoke on the phone. I am sad that he did not live to see the next generation of superconducting computers.

D. Scott Holmes

Passing of Henri Desportes

October 20, 2017(PO60 It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Henri Desportes (aged 84) on the 24^th of September in his village of Gif sur Yvette. Henri Desportes was the head of the CEA Saclay Department STCM until his retirement in the mid-90s.

Since the 60s Henri Desportes was a pioneer of Applied Superconductivity for Physics experiments and accelerators. He rapidly became an internationally recognized expert for his role in the development of numerous accelerator and detector magnet systems for high energy physics.

In particular, he contributed to the creation of the first superconducting magnets for polarized targets (HERA, installed at CERN and then in Protvino), the 15-foot bubble chamber at the Argonne National Laboratory, the magnet of the CERN hybrid spectrometer bubble chamber in 1972, the first thin-walled solenoid, CELLO, in 1978 at DESY, the ALEPH solenoid for LEP at CERN in 1986, and finally should be emphasized his primordial participation in the genesis and the design of the large magnets of the CMS and ATLAS detectors for the LHC collider at CERN.

Henri Desportes supervised numerous works at Saclay on the development of innovative superconducting magnets (solenoids, dipoles, quadrupoles, etc.), with a wide range of scientific, technical and medical applications. He was the main initiator of new techniques using helium indirect cooling, the stabilization of superconductor by aluminum co-extrusion and externally supported coils.

Henri Desportes worked on all these subjects with some great names in physics. It is partly thanks to him that 'Saclay', as international physicists say, has been involved in most of the magnets for large detectors built in Europe since the early 1970s.

For this work he received, in 2002, a prestigious IEEE Council on Superconductivity Award "for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity".

We will remember his courtesy, his humor and his unfailing involvement in these flagship projects that have contributed greatly to Physics experiments and to several fundamental discoveries.

It is to his family that we turn today to offer our support.

November 22, 2017 (PO61). John Stewart Alcorn was born on February 29, 1932, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His family moved to Houston, Texas in 1935, where he grew up. He graduated from The Rice Institute (now Rice University) in 1955, with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. In the United States Navy Reserve, he was commissioned as Ensign.

As an engineer, he joined Aerojet General Nucleonics, San Ramon, from 1958 till 1961 and did transportation studies for laboratory scale, gas cooled, mobile reactors. From 1961 till 1965, he worked for William Brobeck & Associates in Oakland, designing electromagnets, dipoles, and quadrupoles for HEP research at the Rad Lab and at LLL. For the next 10 years, from 1965 till 1975, he was involved in the design, fabrication, and installation of the copper magnet for the 40-inch liquid hydrogen bubble chamber at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In this context, he worked also on the design and fabrication of various copper beam handling magnets and the design, construction, installation, and testing of the Large Aperture Superconducting Solenoid, (LASS).

In 1975, he joined the General Atomic Company, San Diego, for the next 14 years, till 1989, working there on the design and construction of a number of superconducting magnets for high energy physics, power fusion research, superconducting magnetic energy storage and power grid leveling. From 1989 on he had the oversight on design, manufacturing, testing and installation of the large superconducting dipole and quadrupole magnets as the Hall A engineer in charge.

Later, he was consultant and advisor to LANL with respect to the reactivation of the LASS solenoid in the MEGA configuration, and also to Indiana University with respect to the reactivation of the LASS - MEGA solenoid within the framework of Hall D at JLab, where he also advised with the reconfiguration for the purposes of GLUEX.

A Personal Memoir.

Fall of 1964. A meeting took place in Building M1 at the Stanford University, then still known as the Farm, at which the need for someone to design and build a magnet for the planned hydrogen bubble chamber was recognized as essential. A young engineer, John Alcorn by name, was recruited a little later from the engineering pool at the fledgling Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, SLAC, and assigned to do just that in the nascent Hydrogen Bubble Chamber Group where I met him for the first time. John was magnets, I was cryogenics, different interests, yes, but somehow, we gravitated together. John professed to be a runner, I claimed to be a bicyclist, we both played tennis, we both loved to hike in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. We both loved a good discussion, political or technical, which was not important. John was not a reticent character by any means but it took me quite some time before I found out that he was a highly talented artist who expressed the newsworthy events of the day in elaborate pencil compositions somewhat in the manner of Diego Rivera but on a much smaller scale and much more delicately. I also found that John had a fiery temper, just like that artist, offset by an impish sense of humor. He claimed that the reason for his manner was that he was born on the 29th of February and thus was deprived of three birthdays every four years! Not only was John an artist, he was a superb craftsman, a builder of solid models of aircraft, of aircraft of one kind: the fighter planes of the Battle of Britain time. As we were both students of that particular period, we had both opinions about the hardware on a daily basis. While we were building the bubble chamber, John found the time to make an absolutely fabulous scale model of the Spitfire, which is now in the Smithsonian. A decade or so later he produced Daisy Mae, the Douglas A-20 Havoc bomber, which also landed in the Smithsonian. (John is holding the model in the photograph)

The bubble chamber construction proceeded well and John and I began to mesh: I needed more space for my pipes, which he was loth to give as it “reduced the field”. The bubble chamber was commissioned successfully and began to participate in the physics program, John disappeared to make more copper magnets and I to explore this new phenomenon of high field superconductivity. As the 12 foot superconducting magnet for its bubble chamber had just been completed at the Argonne National Laboratory, the confidence in superconductivity rose at SLAC with the result that a complex, multi-coil solenoidal spectrometer was planned. This brought John and me together again to design, build, test, and argue. The project, the Large Aperture Superconducting Solenoid, LASS, was and is a testament to John’s engineering talent. Apart from the field analysis, every component in that assembly of four separate solenoidal coils in iron shells was analyzed with a slide rule and meticulously documented. John guided the design, procurements, construction, the coil winding and insulation, with an eagle eye. When I recall now how limited the resources were at the time, everybody had at least two other obligations, I marvel that LASS was ever finished. But John willed it and it became the forefront of an extensive physics program.

During the construction of LASS, John was often in contact with John Purcell at ANL and established a well-knit collaboration at a distance. So, when LASS was completed and no further superconducting magnets were planned at SLAC, John decided to leave its fractious physicists, and defect to the calm of commerce, to the General Atomic Company in San Diego to be with JP as co-head of the new Superconducting Magnet Group. At that time G.A. was deeply involved in designing the PGFR, a power generating fusion reactor, with superconducting ‘D’ coils. In in the years following John participated in a number experimental programs such as the 10-tesla high field test facility, the 12-tesla model coil cooled with helium II and numerous studies and coil concepts toroidal field magnets for the Engineering Test Facility and fusion power research, GA’s primary mission. He was also involved in the design of the 30 MJ energy storage coil for the Bonneville Power Administration, a project he was particularly proud of and which had interesting consequences for both of us.

John was a unique individual endowed with the ability to make his friends and colleagues participate in his adventures in which common sense was not always immediately obvious. So, it came to pass that the fruits of the 1982 Applied Superconductivity Conference hung by a thread or more correctly on a few sheets of plastic. In Knoxville John divulged a secret to me: his great desire to find a 1956 Chevrolet hardtop coupe and he thought that in the hillbilly country around the town he might find one. Instead of attending the meeting he wandered around the countryside and indeed on the third day announced success. Would I help him get it home? Of course, I would as long as I could take the conference papers with me. I was the editor at the time, and I was not going to let the scientific effort of the past two years out of sight. Agreed, and all we had to do is to chase the resident chickens and get the black vehicle out of the mud. A day later the engine was sputtering, the wheels were turning shod with new tires, the trunk declared unusable and the precious boxes with manuscripts carefully wrapped in many sheets of plastic on the back seat. We visited a car wash but gave up when we noticed that the windows were leaking and the more we washed the weaker the insulation on the wiring became.

The departure from Knoxville was very slow, the supposedly moving parts of the car did so only reluctantly, but we had plenty of time. As the mud fell off our speed would increase in mini-quantum leaps, rather disconcerting, but by the time we reached Memphis we were moving quite nicely. I should mention that we were the sight of the day for the locals: a 1956 Chevy! At the Tennessee border, John declared that he needed to find the original hubcaps and so for the next few hours we cruised the junkyards in the states of Mississippi and Arkansas finding nothing. As we were crossing the Mississippi River, we ran into a tornado, at least we ran by it but could not escape the rain. The car leaked like a sieve. The manuscripts were safe but we were soaked to the skin. The hospitality of the folks in Little Rock fixed all that, after all, we drove a 1956 Chevy and her name was DoraBella as befitted a Southern Dame!

We made it to the Rockies, as we were about to cross, naturally, it started to snow and the temperature fell like a rock, no heat in the car. Imagine the comfort of that ride, but we made the West.  The papers were published, John and DoraBella disappeared in San Diego, to reappear some years later, DoraBella superbly restored in a red and cream livery, bearing the vanity plate ‘Rice 56’, John’s alma mater.

En route John displayed yet another one of his accomplishments: he recited Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ of what we both fondly believed to be the Original English as she was spoken then. Heard once, super, heard twice, ok, heard three times, a walk home became preferable.

Thirteen years of commerce taught John the arcana of schedule and budget, an art not unknown but not necessarily practiced by the physics community so when he was invited to CEBAF he was well equipped to assume the role of Hall A engineer to create a pair of High-Resolution Spectrometers, each consisting of a superconducting dipole and three quadrupoles. His dipoles have an interesting design, the coils have a positive-negative winding profile and the limited cryostability of the superconductor owes much to the concept he pioneered in LASS.

A talented, experienced engineer as John always finds someone who needs help. And so, in his case also, even at a distance. On the West Coast, the fates decided to involve John again in local intrigues. LASS had ceased physics activities and was essentially abandoned but a group of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory decided that the solenoid would be suitable for their program. About this time, I learned that the Bonneville Power Administration’s energy storage project was winding down and with it the associated 1 kW helium refrigerator. While the need for such a machine at SLAC was not immediately obvious, an ‘exchange’ seemed opportune. LANL received LASS, SLAC a large refrigerator, and John became a participant once again. With his help and advice LASS became MEGA and more physics followed.

Some time at the beginning of this century I heard that MEGA had been retired, as a result of some inquiries from one Alex Dzierba of Indiana University who asked whether the magnet was operational and whether it could be transported to CEBAF, by now JLab, for experiments in the new Hall D. The interested parties, including John, met at Los Alamos, found a well maintained three coil MEGA and the fourth coil in the crate in which it left SLAC fifteen years ago, burried in the desert sand outside the laboratory fence. In due course, the magnet was shipped to Indiana and subjected to further indignities which led to numerous electrical and instrumentation problems. MEGA became GLUEX, the coils and iron were reconfigured as also was the cryogenics. Ultimately GLUEX, or at least its solenoid, became a working magnet once again.

It is a huge tribute to John’s engineering skills that so complex a device as the LASS solenoid quartet should, after more than forty years and countless miles of travel and major modifications become operational once more. As soon as I received the news, I attempted to inform and congratulate him. I was too late.

Steve St.Lorant, October 2017.