Professor Michael Charlton

Professor Emeritus (Science), Physics

Telephone number

+44 (0) 1792 295372

Email address

Office - 508A
Fifth Floor
Vivian Building
Singleton Campus

About

I am an experimental atomic physicist, with interests in positrons, positronium and antihydrogen.  I have made contributions to many aspects of the development of physics with low energy positrons and helped to establish positronium beam physics. Since the mid-1980’s I have pioneered the field of antihydrogen physics. I was a founder member of the ATHENA collaboration that first produced cold antihydrogen and later of the ALPHA collaboration. ALPHA has performed several experiments on antihydrogen, including spectroscopic measurements involving ground and excited states, thereby ushering in the era of precision physics with atomic antimatter.

Areas Of Expertise

  • Antihydrogen physics
  • Positron and positronium physics
  • Positron beams and accumulation and manipulation devices.
  • Low energy charged particle and gamma-ray detection techniques

Career Highlights

Award Highlights
  • Elected as a Member of the Academia Europaea (2020)
  • Elected as Vice President of the Learned Society of Wales for STEMM (2018)
  • Trapped Antihydrogen work from 2010 featured as one of the top 40 papers from the last 40 years in an anniversary celebration of the Department of Energy, USA (2017)
  • Elected to General Purpose and Finance Committees of the Learned Society of Wales (2017)
  • Chair of the Inaugural Dillwyn Medal Committee for the Learned Society of Wales (2016)
  • Antihydrogen work featured in “Pioneer 14”, the EPSRC 20-year celebration publication (2015)
  • Elected to the Council of the Learned Society of Wales (2014)
  • Co-recipient (with 10 colleagues from the ALPHA Collaboration) of the 2011 American Physical Society John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research. Citation: “For the introduction and use of innovative plasma techniques which produced the first demonstration of the trapping of antihydrogen (2011)
  • Elected as an Inaugural Fellow of the Learned Society of  Wales (FLSW) (2011)
  • ALPHA’s work on Trapped Antihydrogen selected by Physics World as 2010 physics highlight of the year (2010)
  • Awarded EPSRC Senior Research Fellowship (2007)
  • Antihydrogen work selected as an EPSRC highlight from their first 10 years (2005)
  • Elected to Fellowship of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) (2004)
  • Antihydrogen project selected as an EPSRC highlight (1996)
  • Positronium beam work selected as a SERC highlight (1988)
  • Awarded Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1983)
  • Awarded SERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (1982)
Collaborations