WILL O'BRIEN

 

Biography

I am a physicist/engineer.  I was born January 30th 1976 and was brought up in North London.  I was educated at Highgate School; I joined the junior school 1985 and then the senior school in 1989.  I took A-levels in physics, mathematics and chemistry in 1994 and attained an A grade in each.  I then undertook a four-year (MPhys) degree in physics and astrophysics at Manchester University had obtained an upper second class degree.  The following year I attained an MRes (research Masters) in telecommunications at University College London.  In early 2001 took up a post as a design engineer at Cryogenic Ltd.,  company which manufactures superconducting solenoids, cryostats and other low-temperature instruments.  In the autumn of 2006 I started doing a PhD at Cranfield University.  I investigated the RAP process, a plasma chemical etching processes that uses an atmospheric inductively coupled plasma with the gas containing fluourine (such as nitrogen trifluoride) which,  by reacting with a target material to create volatile products, can remove material from the surface.  This process is being investigated as a new means of fine figuring large telescopic (reflective) optics that follows conventional grinding and polishing to create surfaces that are of the correct form to within <50 nm.


Links to

Curriculum Vitae

PhD Thesis

MRes telecommuncations course information

MPhys projects information


CONTACT DETAILS

Home tel. - +44 (0)20 8346 2329.

Mobile - +44 (0)7976 769807.

e-mail - will_obrien74@hotmail.com.