Professor SUN Liangting, a researcher at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, received the Brightness Award at the International Conference on Ion Sources (ICIS) held at the University of Oxford on September 12.

SUN shared this year's award with Dr. GUO Junwei, formerly a senior engineer at IMP, and now with the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Laboratory at Michigan State University. The award recognizes their groundbreaking advancements in superconducting Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source development and performance.

Highly-charged ECR ion source is one of the key technologies for heavy-ion accelerators. Superconducting ECR ion sources represent the cutting-edge technology for generating high-current, highly-charged heavy-ion beams.

Prof. SUN's team in Lanzhou has pioneered research on third-generation highly-charged ECR ion sources, consistently setting and maintaining world records for beam intensity of highly-charged ions. Most recently, the team developed the world’s first fourth-generation ECR ion source operating at 45 GHz, featuring original use of Nb₃Sn superconducting magnet technology in ECR ion source development.

The high-performance superconducting ECR ion sources developed at IMP have not only created advanced experimental conditions for heavy-ion physics and applications in China, but also contributed enormously to the global advancement of ECR ion source technology.

The Brightness Award, established in 2003 by ICIS, honors researchers worldwide for innovative and significant achievements in ion source physics and technology. Recipients are selected through a rigorous two-round review process by an international awards committee. This is only the second time the award has been given to researchers in the ECR ion source field.

ICIS is a biennial international conference that brings together 200-300 researchers and industry representatives from around the world to discuss the latest advancements and future directions in ion source science, technology, and applications. The conference rotates between Asia, America, and Europe.

The chairman of the awards committee, the conference chairman, and the representative of the award sponsors with Prof. SUN and Dr. GUO. (Image from IMP)