Chris McGuffey awarded Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Grant

The Center for Energy Research’s Chris McGuffey has been awarded a three-year grant from the US Air Force’s Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). Dr. McGuffey's project, titled Dynamics of high-intensity laser-driven proton beam transport in solid density materials, will investigate transport of proton beams produced by high intensity lasers. Such beams have exceptionally high beam density, among the highest that can be produced, making them a unique tool to develop basic understandings of energy transport in warm dense plasma, and material survivability in extreme environments.

"I'm very honored to receive the YIP award because the previous recipients in this field have been very impactful,” said Dr. McGuffey. “I will use the award to look for anomalous transport behavior of ion beams having extremely high intensity and benchmark computer modeling in this unexplored regime. At the completion of the project, I hope we can better predict how ion beams deposit energy, for example in fusion plasmas or reactor walls."

AFSOR called for proposals in the areas of Dynamical Systems and Control, Quantum and Non-Equilibrium Processes, Information, Decision and Complex Networks, Complex Materials and Devices, and Energy, Power and Propulsion. Of the 234 proposals received, they awarded approximately 15.5 million in grants to 42 scientists from 32 research institutions.

The Air Force Young Investigator Program Grant’s goal is to foster creative research, help develop early careers of young scientists, and draw awareness to engineering challenges that relate to the Air Force mission. The award supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D.s or equivalent degrees in the last five years and demonstrate high ability and potential for conducting basic research.