March 18, 2005

What Do You Do At Work?

Tom Seda: Bringing Bright Ideas to the Light Source

This story is the first in a series entitled "What Do You Do at Work?" featuring BNL employees and their jobs at the Lab.

"When I first came to BNL in 1992, I was told that I'd be working on everything from plumbing to programming," said Tom Seda, then a principal technician for the Power Systems Group at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), specializing in the Linac, the linear accelerator that supplies the initial high energy electrons for the NSLS.

Tom Seda

While Seda has not yet worked on plumbing on the job, he has constructed and programmed a single-chip programmable logic device (PLD) to handle the timing that controls the Linac's electron gun. The PLD replaces three logic chassis that control the release of electrons from the electron gun, the origin of electron bunches for x-rays, infrared light and ultraviolet light for experiments at the NSLS.

Seda is now a senior technical specialist assigned to the Operations Group at the NSLS and his primary task is to work on a new design for the extraction magnets of the NSLS Booster Ring. The current magnets - which kick electron bunches at an energy of 800 MeV into the NSLS storage rings, where the energy is ramped up to 2.8 billion eV - are encased in a vacuum chamber.

"The problem with the current design is the short power pulse has to be fed through long conductors to get into the vacuum-encased pulse magnet, known as a kicker. That's not an efficient way to bump the beam," Seda said. "I'm going to try to redesign the system with the pulse magnet outside the vacuum chamber. That would make storing the beam much less troublesome."

The kicker magnets date back to 1983, when the Booster was built, and they are constructed with the standard ferrites that were available at the time. Seda is now investigating newer ferrites for these magnets - specific ferrite alloys currently manufactured for the next generation high-energy accelerators. "We may be able to reconfigure our current bunch patterns with the faster kicker magnets," he said.

"I'm researching the current papers on kicker designs as well as speaking with the scientist and design engineers at other national laboratories," said Seda. "They have been very helpful in identifying vendors who may have the materials and manufacturing skills needed for the new design."

In the past, Seda had constructed and tested a new modulator for the Deep Ultraviolet Free Electron Laser energy upgrade, and he worked on two klystron units in the accelerator Test Facility, which supply RF power to a linear accelerator for advanced laser experiments. Among his suggestions was to replace the PCB-contaminated oil in the klystrons with biodegradable oil.

Seda also helped to test the Marx generator section of the Sandia Pulser Terra Watt Laser, which BNL tested for DOE's Sandia National Laboratory. For his exceptional job performance on this project coupled with helping recover the NSLS after only one week of downtime due to an equipment fire, he is a two-time winner of the BNL Spotlight Award.

"Working as a technician at the NSLS brings opportunities to be involved in all aspects of electronics, with the added benefit of being involved in interesting and ever-changing projects," Seda commented. "I love working firsthand with these amazing machines along with dedicated, talented employees who often go beyond what is expected of them on the job."

Born in the Philippines, Seda, who is of Puerto Rican and Filipino descent, immigrated to the Bronx, NY, with his family when he was an infant. The first in his family to earn a college degree, he received a B.S. in electronic engineering technology from the DeVry Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, in 1988. He then worked as a technician at Magnetico of Holtsville, NY, where his responsibilities included designing custom military-grade transformers and inductors, before he joined BNL in February, 1992.

Seda is married to Anna Seda, an administrative assistant in the Energy Sciences & Technology Department. The couple has an 8-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter. Tom Seda is the president of the BERA Camping Club, and both Anna and Tom Seda are participants in the BERA kickboxing class offered on site. In addition, he and his wife enjoy traveling abroad and going on cruises.

ARTICLE BY: Diane Greenberg