(updated October, 2007)
We conduct ultra-high precision mass measurements on trapped single ions using Penning traps. This work was started at the University of Washington by Hans Dehmelt in the 1960's and has continued to flourish, yielding a Nobel prize for Prof. Dehmelt in 1989. Prof. Van Dyck joined the group in 1971 as a post-doc, working on the g-2 experiment for electrons, which measured the magnetic moment for the electron to ultra-high precision. He started the ion mass spectrometry experiments here at UW in 1976, and since that time our experiments have yielded accuracies at or near the top of the field (current resolution for our spectrometer is about 1 part in 1011). Our mass measurements have seen a variety of applications, and our current work on Helium-3 and Tritium will be used in the direct neutrino mass measurement by KATRIN.
Notice: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0353712. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.