Biography – Ferg Brand

Early years

I was born in and grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand. Secondary school was Kings High School. The last year at Kings was remarkable, of the twenty-seven pupils eight of us went on to complete PhDs, three became medical doctors, two ministers of religion, one Secretary of Labour and one Rear-admiral.

I was able to complete the course requirements for my University of Otago BSc in two years as those with good marks were able to go into second year pure mathematics straight from high school. I completed my MSc in Physics A Microwave Investigation of the Positive Column in a Glow Discharge in 1963.

At the end of that year I decided to continue in Physics at an Australian university and I am forever grateful to Prof. Charles Watson-Munro, Head of the Wills Plasma Physics Department in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, for his encouraging letter that brought me to Sydney. In those days overseas students, even those with a NZ MSc, had to do the MSc Qualifying year (identical to Honours) before moving on to a higher Sydney University degree. That was good since all the research topics were new to me and, gaining an equivalent first class honours, I won a scholarship to continue onto a PhD.

Sydney

I completed my PhD Propagation of Microwaves in Plasmas in 1968 – and handed in my thesis a week before our twins, Katherine and Allister, were born. I was then appointed a Professional Officer in the Wills Plasma Physics Department. I was lucky in the way the position was interpreted in the department as I was able to continue research and participate in teaching and the development of new courses as well as carrying out the normal professional officer duties of designing electronic and electrical equipment. In 1987 I was appointed Senior Lecturer in Physics and continued in that position until I retired in 2001.

Currently I hold an Honorary Senior Lecturer position and enjoy the status of gentleman physicist.

Research

My research interests are in millimetre-wavelength electromagnetic radiation and plasma physics.

The main themes of my early research, were (i) the study of the propagation of microwaves in plasmas and the development of new microwave diagnostic methods for investigating plasmas, (ii) Electron cyclotron harmonic waves in PIG discharges, (iii) Separation of metal ions in plasma centrifuges.

The work for which I am best known relates to gyrotron millimetre-wave sources. The development of new gyrotrons and the quasioptical antennas necessary to convert the gyrotron output into a useful beam of radiation, applications of the radiation to spectroscopy and plasma physics and theory. My gyrotron work led to the establishment of a close collaboration in 1988 with a gyrotron group in the Department of Applied Physics in the Faculty of Engineering at Fukui University in Japan. This collaboration is ongoing.

Since the completion of the gyrotron project, I have carried out a range of investigations on millimetre waves. Beams with phase singularities, geometric phase, scattering by photo-induced plasma gratings on semiconductors, circular polarizing properties of strip gratings and surface waves.

Further information

List of my publications in

www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~brand/publications.pdf.

Descriptions of Millimetre-wave Physics, the Gyrotron Project and links to my course notes on Millimetre-wave Physics and Plasma Physics at

www.physics.usyd.edu.au/plasma/gyro.html.

Other interests

Computing. Here is a photo of the computer I built in the late 1970s playing the Game of Life. Either the National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor chip or the Signetics 2650 chip could be selected. It boasted 256 bytes of RAM! All the programming was done in machine language. Note the small calculator keyboard on the box for programming in hexadecimal (before I acquired the keyboard) and the cassette tape recorder for program storage.

It was a good time to enter the subject - only the microprocessor was VLSI, almost all of the other chips were 74-series and one knew how they all contibuted to the computational process. The same could be said about my next computer - the Apple ][.

Family History. This is a very recent interest and I regret very much that I never quizzed my parents or aunts and uncles more extensively on our family background. But access to the Internet makes the present a great time to be investigating family history. I have discovered an amazing amount and have made contact with other branches of the family and have been fortunate enough to visit newly-discovered cousins in Scotland and New Zealand.

Dad migrated to NZ in his 20s. His family was Scottish with a dash of Burmese. One of his great-grandfathers, Major George Broadfoot, is a character in several of George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman novels (Flashman and Flashman and the Mountain of Light) set in British India. Mum was born in NZ. Her family came from Ireland via Victoria,

Cats. Here is as good a place as any to introduce the gentle reader to games enjoyed by my (late) cat. (Dovey – named after Ruth Park’s heroine in Playing Beatie Bow.)

(i) Lay cat upside-down on lap feet pointing away from you (see photo below). Pat feet – feel the springiness – and say

Rabbity-feet (pat)

Rabbitty (pat), rabbity (pat), rabbity-feet (pat)

repeat

(ii) Cat on lap facing you. Stroke facial parts lightly with finger when named.

Nose-leather (stroke nostrils downwards), nose-leather, nose-leather, chin (stroke chin

downwards)

Nose-leather, nose-leather, nose-leather, chin

Nose-leather, whisker-pads (stroke right pad outwards), whisker-pads (stroke left pad

outwards), chin

Nose-leather, nose-leather, nose-leather, chin